Archangels of Light and Darkness
by Random Equinox
Summary: My name is Garrus Vakarian. I've travelled to many places and many worlds during my misspent life, but none as wretched as Omega. Haven for criminals, renegades and monsters. Many of them are hunting for a prize that could destabilize the galaxy and the idiot who has it. They'll kill him if they find him. Unless I find him first...
1. The Odds Are Improving

_Author's Note: Yes, I'm back with a new fanfic. It's not my ME3 novelization—don't worry, I haven't forgotten—but I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless. When I _do _start it, though, I'll be adding a little treat: for every 200 reviews, I'll post an extra one-shot as a reward. Just FYI._

_Now then, this fanfic takes place during two points of The Hero We Deserve. It begins during the recruitment of a mysterious vigilante known only by his codename: Archangel._

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><p><strong>Archangels of Light and Darkness<strong>

**Chapter 1: The Odds Are Improving**

My name is Garrus Vakarian.

I used to be a soldier. Did my compulsory term of service with the Hierarchy. Maybe I could've worked my way up the tiers. But somehow, I don't think that would ever happen. Blindly following orders from my superiors never was my thing. All I would ever be was an officer's son. I would never be a career soldier. So when my term of military service ended, I didn't bother re-enlisting.

I used to be a cop. Worked with C-Sec. I was gonna be just like my father. Yes, the same father who was the aforementioned officer. Should've figured that following in my father's footsteps a second time wouldn't be any more successful. Following rules, regulations, procedures and protocols were never my thing. Neither was filling out paperwork in triplicate. Not when there was justice to be meted out. So when the opportunity came knocking, I was ready to answer.

I used to be an independent agent, working alongside the first human Spectre. Commander Shepard. My friend. We traveled throughout the galaxy, righting wrongs and kicking ass, in our hunt for a rogue Spectre who'd brought shame and disgrace to the Council, the Spectres and the turian people. Which is a bit hypocritical, considering I'm no paragon of turian virtue, but hush now. This is my story.

I used to be a very frustrated turian, more from all the bureaucracy and injustice in the galaxy than any *ahem* dry spells. Then I found out that there was a greater problem than the fact that I hadn't gotten laid in spirits-knew-how-long. A greater threat than pimps, murderers, politicians and excess regulations: the Reapers. Soulless, ancient machines of unimaginable power, bent on wiping out all life in the galaxy on a regular basis—or, at least, all sophisticated life—for reasons known only to them. Shepard and I stopped them. Because we were that good.

OK, OK: we might've had some help. Just a bit.

We even saved the Council, despite all the disbelief, lack of support and incidental hostility they'd given us in the past. In gratitude, the Council promised to take Shepard's warnings about the Reapers seriously. Their gratitude was short-lived. Politicians.

And just when things couldn't get any worse: Shepard died. And all hope for a brighter future died with him.

I tried to make a difference. Tried to be a Spectre like Shepard. Gave C-Sec another shot, like Shepard urged. But all their power, all their resources, proved woefully inadequate against the rising time of crime and misery. So I found another way.

I used to be a vigilante. You may have heard of me. Archangel? Came out of nowhere on a little cesspool called Omega? Thwarted robberies, vandalism, attempted rapes, drug smuggling, weapons smuggling, people smuggling, attempted murder and just about any crime on Omega. Scared the living crap out of lowlifes and gangbangers and mercs. Even got a squad together. My squad. Together we fought back against the worst that Omega had to offer. Together we made a difference. Even when the three biggest merc groups on Omega—and, incidentally, the galaxy—banded together, they _still _couldn't take us down. I led the biggest and baddest squad that ever worked for the good—though the good never really had a say in the matter.

Then we were betrayed. _I_ was betrayed.

I used to be a dead man. Turian. Whatever. After Sidonis the Back-Stabbing Scum sold us out, the Blue Suns, Eclipse and the Blood Pack closed in on my location. Outmanned. Outgunned. Out of options.

It was then that I thought about my father. The soldier and C-Sec officer I could never measure up to. The hidebound, inflexible old man who would always do things by the book. Even if it meant shackling himself to bureaucracy, worshipping regulations rather than the spirits and letting dirtbags walk. We never did see eye to eye on anything.

But doing things 'my' way hadn't made much of a difference. Maybe the old man had a point after all. Shepard seemed to think so.

So I called him on the comm and told him he was right. About everything.

I'll say this for Father: he could gather evidence, analyze it and follow the connections to their conclusion like no one else. There's a reason he was the best of the best in C-Sec. And he knew that I would only say what I said, in the way I said it, if I was about to die.

Neither of us said it out loud, of course. But we both knew.

Father told me some bullshit about finishing up 'target practice' and then come back to Palaven so we could sort things out. I was going to play along, for the old man's sake. But there was this group of freelancers heading over the one and only bridge connecting my hideout to the rest of Omega. One of them was a prime target. I couldn't resist lining up a shot. My scope focused on him, moved up towards his helmet. I scanned past the emblem on his hardsuit's chestplate...

...

...that emblem.

Two silver-grey characters, with a red triangular shaped object on the right. They didn't mean anything in any turian language. In a human language, though, they spelled out 'N7'. The highest and most elite level of the Alliance's special operations forces.

There was only one man I knew who had earned the right to sport the N7 emblem on his attire. And, up until a minute ago, I thought he was dead.

I told my father it might take a while before I could return to Palaven. The odds had just gotten a lot better.

Which meant it was time to kick some ass.

* * *

><p>Shepard wasn't alone. There were four humans—two men, two women—and a salarian with him. It figured he'd formed another squad of his own. He had a way of attracting people. Two of the humans had something in common, judging by the emblem they both sported. It looked familiar, somehow.<p>

Despite their disparate origins, everyone in Shepard's new squad had experienced combat before. That much was clear by the way they efficiently dispatched the freelancers in front of them. I fired off a shot to get them to hurry up, then realized how quickly they were moving. At their current rate, they would easily catch up to the thugs-for-hire that had already entered my base. So I could focus on dealing with any other stragglers that had been hired to wear me down and waste my bullets.

I tried to be judicious with my bullets. Whenever possible, I tried to kill them with a single bullet. One shot. One kill. Who's the man? I'm the man. Turian.

The one who'd let his squad down.

Damn it, Shepard. Hurry up. I need more guns. I need you.

As if the spirits were listening—or just catching up for lost time—Shepard entered the room. "Archangel?" he asked.

Before I could respond, I saw a movement in the shadows. I raised a talon to tell Shepard to hold on. Then I adjusted the focus on my rifle scope and aimed. Sure enough, some fool was peering up, trying to line up a shot. Or maybe he was just checking to see if it was safe. Didn't even have his pistol open. Leaned his head well out of cover. After all the fights I'd had, it was easy to take him out.

Then I got up, stretched a kink out of my back and walked over to a stack of crates. I slowly lowered myself down and took a good look at him. He wasn't wearing the basic grey hardsuit issued to all Alliance soldiers, even the ones who had earned the coveted N7 status. Nor was he wearing the black-and-red Colossus rig that he had favoured up until that horrible day two years ago.

Instead he was sporting a blue-and-black hardsuit, one that was sleek, elegant and high-tech. It was minimalist in design apart from a small N7 logo on his chest. If this was the Shepard I remembered, he would have probably preferred it to be a little smaller.

All thoughts of his choice of attire fled my mind when I saw his face. Covered in scars, but not like any scars I had seen before. It was like some insane lunatic had used a shank to carve deep, jagged furrows into his flesh. And... the scars were... _glowing_. A dull, throbbing, unholy red. Like caverns to some unspeakable hell that had been opened up to the light of day. His eyes glinted with that same horrible red.

Spirits, was that really Shepard? And if so... what had happened to him?

I took off my helmet and propped up my sniper rifle between my legs. Took a breath of fresh air—by Omega's standards, anyway—for the first time in days. Tried to think of what to say. The seconds passed. Maybe a minute. Then I gave up and simply said what I had thought every second of every day for the last two years.

"Shepard. I thought you were dead."

"Garrus! What are you doing here?" He stepped forward, looking like he was about to greet me with an enthusiastic hug. I was almost glad when he stopped. After everything that had happened, I was too damn tired to return any embrace.

"Just keeping my skills sharp. A little target practise."

Apparently my snark wasn't completely exhausted. Sure, I could have put a little pep and vigour into it. Wry grin. Knowing glint in the eye, maybe. Fuck it.

Shepard—or the scarred-up wreck that was posing as Shepard—frowned. "You okay?" He sounded concerned. _That _definitely sounded like Shepard. So I answered his question. "Been better, but it sure is good to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work. Especially on my own."

"What are you doing out here on Omega in the first place?" he wanted to know.

That brought up even more pent-up frustration. "I got fed up with all the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel," I said, barely getting the words out through all the disgust and bile. "Figured I could do more good on my own. At least it's not hard to find criminals here. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot."

"Yeah. About that." Shepard actually raised an eyebrow at me. "How'd you managed to piss off _every _major merc organization in the Terminus Systems?"

I had to admit, I was quite proud of that accomplishment. "It wasn't easy," I said, pretending to stretch out a neck muscle—only to realize I really did have a stiff spot there. "I _really _had to work at it." Then I looked out of the base, where the mercs were hiding. Plotting their next move. "I am amazed that they teamed up to fight me. They must really hate me."

"Yes. They really hate Archangel—mild-mannered turian by day, ruthless vigilante by night. Since when did you start calling yourself that, anyway?"

Okay, that was a long story. See, when I first arrived on Omega, I bumped into this old couple. Elderly humans. They were being harassed. After I dealt with it, they called me 'a real-life angel.' When Sidonis and I came up with the idea to form a squad of vigilantes, I used that encounter as an inspiration. Started calling myself 'Archangel.' Because if I could provide an example, a beacon of hope for all the oppressed of Omega, a symbol for the criminals to fear that they were powerless to stop... then I could become more than a failure. More than a would-be cop who'd let his friend die. I could be a legend.

At least, that was the idea. Now it just sounded silly. "It's just a name the locals gave me. For, um, all my good deeds." I coughed in embarrassment. "I don't mind it, but please... it's, um, just 'Garrus' to you."

"Yeah. Garrus," one of Shepard's companions called out. Non-regulation hardsuit. Lots of scarring—though not as raw as Shepard's. Slightly discoloured patches of skin and a somewhat glassy-looking eye around the right side of his face. Had an accent of some sort. "Nailed me good a couple times, by the way."

Yeah. Right. That. "Concussive rounds only. No harm done," I shrugged. "Didn't want the mercs getting suspicious."

"Uh huh." The scarred man looked skeptical.

"If I wanted to do more than take your shields down, I'd have done it."

He thought about that. Then shrugged. "Good shot."

It was, wasn't it? "Thanks. Besides, you were taking your sweet time, guarding the rear and all. I needed to get you moving."

Shepard looked around. "Well, we got here, but I don't think getting out will be as easy."

"No, it won't." I got up and lowered myself to the ground and pointed at the bridge that Shepard and his companions had just crossed. "That bridge saved my life, funnelling all those witless idiots into scope. But it works both ways. They'll slaughter us if we try to get out that way."

"So we just sit here and wait for them to take us out?" one of the women asked. Dark hair, pale skin. She also had an accent, though a different one than the scarred man. More importantly, she was one of the humans who had that mysterious emblem. A gold, elongated hexagon. Where had I seen it before?

The woman distracted me before I could ponder the mystery any further. "You must have a better plan than that."

"Our situation isn't all that bad," I said, feeling slightly defensive. "This place has held them off so far. And with the six of you now..." I gave Shepard's squad a once-over. They'd shown that they could handle themselves in a fight. Besides, I didn't exactly have the luxury of being picky. After sparing a glance at the bridge, I looked at Shepard's squad again. "I suggest we hold this location, wait for a crack in their defences and take our chances. It's not a perfect plan, but it's a plan."

"How'd you let yourself get into this position?"

If this wasn't Shepard, then the impostor had done his homework. Constantly asking questions was textbook Shepard. He had a way of probing for the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. He would've made a good cop. "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement," I finally said, not willing to explore Sidonis's betrayal any longer. "It's a long story."

"I'll bet."

If this really was Shepard, there was one way to make sure. The best part was that it would give him added incentive to get me out of here. "I'll make you a deal," I offered, "you get me out of here alive, and I'll tell you the whole damn thing."

You should have seen his eyes light up. Hook, line and sinker. "Done. If we fight as a team, we'll hold the mercs off."

"Especially since that bridge provides a perfect bottleneck," the first woman to speak again.

"You're both right," I agreed. "Your reinforcements and that bridge does counter the mercs' numbers. Let's see what they're up to." I looked out again. Still nothing. That didn't seem right. They had plenty of time to react. So I walked over to the ledge, lifted my sniper rifle and used the scope to scan the shadows. That did the trick. "Hmm... looks like they know their infiltration team failed."

Time for another test. I turned to Shepard and offered my sniper rifle. "Take a look. Scouts. Eclipse, I think."

He accepted my rifle. The instant he held it, I knew it was Shepard. Or a really good impostor. The way he held it, his hands automatically adjusted to the weight, the angle of his hands, the position of his fingers, the lightness of it all. The kind of thing that only a trained sniper would know. He lifted the scope up, braced himself, looked through the sniper scope. I could tell he had found a target by the way his body stiffened and relaxed. Yes, I know I'm contradicting myself. He exhaled, gently squeezed the trigger.

Then he casually returned the sniper rifle. "More than scouts," he told me. "Mercs are sticking to their plan by sending in Eclipse's light mechs. One less now, though."

Figures. "Indeed," was all I said. "We better get ready. I'll stay up here. I can do a lot of damage from this vantage point. "You..."

I trailed off, thinking about how things had dramatically changed. About how the man and friend I thought had perished in the line of duty had miraculously come back. It almost looked like him. It sounded like him. But was it him?

To be honest, I didn't care. I was just so tired of fighting. Of having to bear the weight of responsibility, the weight of leadership and the crushing, suffocating weight of failure when my squad died. I was so ready to let someone else bear that burden. And if the man who would take my place was the man I thought he was, then maybe I hadn't offended the spirits after all.

"You can do what you do best," I said finally. "Just like old times, Shepard."

* * *

><p>Shepard quickly introduced the rest of his team.<p>

Miranda Lawson. Biotic. Tactician and strategist. Had an EMP generator built into her omni-tool, just like the one I had—ever since I'd used an aquarium to overload some dirtbag's shields on the Citadel, I'd looked long and hard for a way to replicate that. No surprise that she had done the same. Her skills would come in handy in a support capacity.

Jacob Taylor. Also a biotic. Weaponry made him more suitable for close-range combat, though we were in big trouble if it got to that point. Thankfully, his pistol would let him contribute to our efforts to keep the mercs at bay for as long as possible.

Kasumi Goto. Thief. Stealth expert. Specialist, though not in a spec-ops or assassination kind of way. Still, she knew her way around a gun. And her EMP generator would definitely come in handy.

The scarred man was Zaeed Massani. I'd heard of him, even back when I was with C-Sec. One of the best bounty hunters and mercenaries in the galaxy. Someone had apparently hired him to help Shepard. Someone with big pockets and a very large credit account, judging by the fees he usually commanded.

That left the salarian. Mordin Solus. Professor. Ran a clinic in the more plague-ridden areas of Omega, or so I had heard. Very fast talker. Didn't talk fast enough that I couldn't see the way his eyes had automatically scanned the room when he'd entered, identifying points of entry, escape routes, cover. Shepard had done that, of course. So did Jacob. Same with Zaeed. And Miranda too, come to think of it. Not to mention Kasumi. Point is: you don't do that without some kind of training or experience. Could be law enforcement. Or military. Or crime. But from the stories I'd heard about Mordin, I'd say intelligence. Which meant STG.

Shepard stationed Zaeed and himself so they were on either side of me. The reason became clear once I saw Zaeed pull out a sniper rifle of his own. Three snipers, overlapping firing arcs. We could cover a lot of territory and land a lot of kill-shots from our position. I would get the most of course, because I'm awesome, but I had taken out a _lot _of dirt bags since I'd arrived on this floating cesspool. I could afford to be generous and share a couple kills. Miranda ordered the rest of the squad to take up certain positions. Recalling their talents, I surmised that she was trying to spread out the biotics and tech experts so they could strike at any spot from any angle. More importantly, it would ensure that no one strike could cripple our capacity in any one area.

Finally, it suggested that Miranda had some experience in strategy and command. But I could look into that later.

Back when I was with Shepard, we'd faced a lot of geth. These mechs were fairly similar. Had a few tricks up their sleeve. But so did we. More importantly, the mechs had no self-preservation programmed into their synthetic brains. With enough firepower, we could take them out. Especially if we could damage their armour plating first. Mordin did that by launching volleys of plasma at them at regular intervals. Shepard was also setting mechs on fire at regular intervals—guess he picked up a few new tricks, along with the scars. Miranda deployed her biotics to similar effect.

The flow of mechs ran out. Apparently mechs might be expendable, but they weren't inexhaustible. Now what, I wondered.

As if they heard my question, Eclipse mercs emerged from the shadows and started across the bridge. Guess Eclipse drew the short straw. They came in fast. They probably figured we couldn't snipe all of them and our sniper rifles were designed for long-range. No one had ever told them how some snipers could make it work regardless of the distance. Besides, while they were running, they weren't shooting. Which made it easy for us to pick them off one by one. Kasumi was kind enough to zap one of the mercs' shields. I quickly fired a bullet that went right through the eye-slit in his visor.

"Miranda," Shepard warned. "Asari incoming."

He was right. Two of them were quickly approaching. Miranda tore through their barriers with her biotics. Shepard and I took them out. If anyone asks, I got my asari first. Shepard would say otherwise, of course, but he was wrong.

Then I heard a ping from my visor. I activated it with a quick blink of my eyes. I'd set up a program that would alert me whenever any of the sensors I had set up were triggered. Like now. "Eclipse mercs have entered the base," I said aloud.

I got a lot of shocked looks, like I had just pulled a magic trick. I hadn't, of course. Shepard, at least, kept any surprise to himself. "Miranda, Jacob; with me," he said.

That left Kasumi and Zaeed behind to keep me company. There were still some Eclipse mercs coming towards us. Kasumi and I drained their shields. Zaeed took one of them out while I was raising my sniper rifle. A second later, I finished off the other one. Meanwhile, Kasumi had taken out a third merc's shields the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, he ducked. "Zaeed," I called out. "Can't get a clear shot on him. How 'bout you?"

"Nah. Don't worry. Got somethin' better."

I saw him rustling through his pockets before he pulled out a small spherical object. A grenade. Zaeed gave me a feral grin. "Let's light up that bugger, shall we?" Without waiting for me to reply, he threw the grenade. It flew out the window and through the air in a long, parabolic arc before landing on the hapless merc and setting him on fire. He screamed as he jumped to his feet. Kept screaming as he stumbled, trying to slap out the flames and narrowly missing the next couple mercs. And he kept screaming as he tripped, fell over the side of the railing and toppled off the bridge.

That gave me an idea. "Kasumi, can you disable their shields?"

A crack, a flash of sparks and a few cries of dismay was all the reply I needed. I ran over to the far right of the room. Zaeed seemed mystified at first. "I'm loading a concussive round," I told him. "The lethal version." Zaeed thought about that, let out a cruel chuckle, then joined me.

"On three..." I said. "Two... one..."

And just like that, two more mercs were knocked off their feet and sent flying over the railing. The last merc decided to hide until some reinforcements arrived. At first, I thought that would come in the form of another four mercs, who started slowly advancing across the bridge in what humans call a leapfrog formation. Then I heard Jaroth—leader of the local Eclipse chapter call out _"All right, let's see how you handle this, Archangel!"_

It didn't take me long to see what he was talking about. Jaroth had a YMIR on standby. I'd heard rumours that he had smuggled one onto the station. Shit, shit, shit, shit, _SHIT!_ Cursing away, I activated the comm. "Damn it! They're sending out a heavy mech."

To my surprise, I heard Shepard burst out into laughter. Maybe he'd lost his senses during the long trip back to the galaxy of the living. _"That problem should take care of itself, Garrus."_

"Shepard, what are you..." I stopped as the YMIR promptly opened fire. On its fellow Eclipse mercs. I should have known. But then, part of me was still trying to figure out if this was the real Shepard.

By the time Shepard had arrived, the hacked YMIR had killed another merc with its mass accelerator cannons. While it was venting excess heat from that weapon, it swivelled and fired a rocket, blowing a third merc to smithereens. The fourth merc panicked, dropped his gun and tried to run for it, only to take a stream of bullets in the back. The velocity was so extreme it literally cut him apart.

"You know," Shepard said, ever so casually, "it's really not fair of them to gang up on that poor mech like that."

Keeping a straight face, I nodded. "Only bullies would do that."

"We should do what we can to help that poor mech out."

"So long as we don't provide too much help. That hacking job you did on it won't last forever." Miranda said that with a frown. Perhaps she paid for her strategic skills with a dearth of humour.

"We'll only aid the YMIR until it has the advantage and the mercs are on the losing side," Shepard replied. "At which point we'll be obligated to help them out by whittling down the heavy mech's defences."

"And once the poor mech gets overwhelmed by all the mean mercs, we really should switch sides again to help it out," Kasumi chimed in.

Shepard let out a sigh. "It wouldn't do to play favourites."

"This could be a long day. What a shame." Judging by her tone, I gathered Miranda was trying to join in on the fun. I had to give her points for trying, if nothing else.

There were about eight Eclipse mercs, all of whom were more interested in dealing with their synthetic ally-turned-traitor than attacking us. Miranda, Kasumi and I deployed our EMPs to cover as many mercs as possible before attacking. While Shepard took out the snipers, the rest of us began attacking the troopers. After my second kill, I paused to gauge how the YMIR was doing. We could wait a little longer, I decided. Just long enough to hit another merc—ah. Shepard beat me to it. So Miranda and I drained the remainder of the YMIR's shields.

Then we decided to start attacking the Eclipse mercs. Then we got bored and went back to the YMIR. And back. And forth. And back and forth.

Shepard must have done quite a hacking job, because the YMIR spent the entire fight shooting at its would-be allies. It should have rebooted its IFF protocols within a minute. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Most of the mercs were slaughtered. The exception was one merc who was smart enough to find a hiding spot and start pelting rockets at it. Whether by luck or intent, he also picked a spot that none of us could get a clear line of sight to. After several shots, the YMIR finally slumped and exploded—taking out the rocket launcher-toting merc in the process.

A slightly deranged cry rang out. I think Jaroth was a little upset. Boys and their toys.

The next thing I knew, he was sprinting towards us, firing all the way. Idiot—you can't depend on any level of accuracy when firing on the run, no matter what the vids say. All you'll do is waste bullets. Which was probably why the pair of Eclipse mercs following him didn't open fire as well. Miranda launched an EMP at him. That didn't quite do the trick, but several shots from Jacob and Zaeed took out the rest of his shields. Shepard hit him with a burst of plasma, followed quickly by several shots from Kasumi and Mordin and another concussive round from Zaeed.

My turn, I decided. Raising my sniper rifle, I focused on the nice hole in his armour and squeezed the trigger. Jaroth's body jerked before slumping to the ground. Miranda and Jacob took out one of the remaining mercs. Kasumi, Zaeed and Mordin finished off the other one.

As soon as the last Eclipse merc collapsed, Shepard stood up and started looting the room. Yet another sign that this was the genuine article.

For a moment, I thought Zaeed was going to follow Shepard's questionable example. But he was just interested in the assault rifle propped up against one of the sofas. "M-15 Vindicator," he recognized. "Damn good weapon. Had one of these a while back, 'till a surprise attack from one of my bounties sent me hurtling out of my quarters with nothing but a pistol."

I remembered when I came across the Vindicators. Coincidentally, it was part of an Eclipse shipment. They don't always smuggle guns, but credits are credits. And when the mysterious Archangel is ambushing your mercs, you might want to bring in something with a bit more firepower. So why did I have a Vindicator lying around? Because I only have one set of hands. "I found a couple of those last month. If you want that one, it's yours."

Judging by the grin on Zaeed's face, I just made his day. He immediately picked it up, transferred the thermal clips from his old weapon to the Vindicator and started checking with it. Seeing that Shepard was done looting everything that wasn't nailed down, I turned towards him. "You're kicking ass, Shepard," I told him. "They barely touched me."

I looked out at the bridge and smiled grimly at the sight of a certain Eclipse merc's body. "And we got Jaroth in the process. I've been hunting that little bastard for months now."

"Why were you after him?" Shepard asked.

"He's been shipping tainted eezo all over Citadel space. Half the goods I seized back at C-Sec came from his team here on Omega. I took out a big shipment a while back and killed his top lieutenant in the process."

That literally was the truth. In the months I'd spent in C-Sec since Shepard's death—and how _had _he survived, I wanted to know—every other shipment of tainted eezo could be traced back to Omega's ports, and Eclipse had its yellow-and-black fingerprints all over them. A few years ago, it might have been one in ten. Clearly Eclipse had ramped up its operations. Until now.

"And his brother," Shepard added.

"That's right," I agreed. That was rather satisfying, though it did have an unfortunate side-effect: "Not surprised he decided to work with the other mercs after that."

"We've still got Blood Pack and Blue Suns left," Shepard said. "You've been hitting and running their operations, so you must know what their forces are like."

Cranky, ugly and way too obsessed with guns. Though Shepard probably knew that already. "Yeah. They're pretty damn tough," was all I said. "Let's see what they're up to."

Using my visor, I scanned the bridge. Nothing. Next, I accessed the logs from the various sensors I'd placed throughout the building. "They've reinforced the other side. Heavily. But they're not coming over the bridge yet. What are they waiting for?"

Then the explosion came. We felt it more than we heard it. As the alarms sounded, Jacob looked around. "What the hell was that?"

I still had the sensor logs scrolling across my visor. I read them, then pulled up a more detailed report on my omni-tool. "Damn it," I cursed. "They've breached the lower level, down in the basement." How had _that _happened?

"Some of the mercs said they had blasters working on clearing the tunnels in that area," Shepard recalled.

Figures. The situation had gotten better with the arrival of Shepard and his squad, so naturally the spirits saw fit to balance the scales. Capricious bastards—I meant that in the nicest possible way, of course. It wouldn't do to offend the spirits. "Well, they had to use their brains eventually," I sighed. "You'd better get down there, Shepard. I'll keep the bridge clear."

"Miranda, Zaeed; come with me," he ordered. "Everyone else stays here. Back Garrus up and follow his orders."

Jacob was fairly amiable about it. I got the feeling that he was ex-military, the way he agreed to Shepard's order. "If you say so."

Kasumi, on the other hand, wasn't about to let it go quite so easily. "But I wanted to go down into the deep, dark hole." Before I could question her sanity, she winked. "Just kidding."

A sense of humour, even in this tense situation. Good. I needed people like that to watch my back. "Thanks, Shepard. You better get going."

Shepard looked around blankly. "How do I get down to the basement?" he wanted to know. "And what do I do once I'm there?"

I gave him directions and wished him luck.

* * *

><p>After Miranda, Zaeed and Shepard left, I belatedly remembered that the door to the basement had been sealed. I quickly opened it again before doing another sweep, this time with my sniper rifle. Sensors are handy, but they can be fooled. Sometimes, you need to inspect things with your own eyes. Though they can be fooled as well.<p>

Not this time however, though I wish they had been fooled. I really wanted to believe that I wasn't seeing a pack of vorcha creep onto the bridge. "Blood Pack," I warned the others. "You'll need to take them down fast and hard. If you give them a chance—"

"They'll regenerate," Jacob finished. "We met them when we were recruiting Mordin for the mission." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gadgets. They looked like...

"Incendiary ammo modifiers," Jacob said, confirming my earlier evaluation. "That should help even the odds."

They certainly would. Fire seemed to short-circuit the vorcha's regenerative ability. Better yet, it would do the same for the krogan. Kasumi, Mordin and I quickly accepted Jacob's mods and applied them to our weapons. Then we turned our attention to the vorcha. Just as we were about to fire, something caught my eye. "Hold on." I took a closer look through my scope. "There's a krogan coming up. Jacob, Kasumi; lay down just enough fire to slow the vorcha down. Mordin: when the krogan reaches them, hit the vorcha in the middle."

I got a couple blank stares, but they complied nonetheless. By the time the krogan had caught up with the vorcha, though, they had figured it out. "Deploying fire," Mordin announced. "Ready to burn."

Then I deployed my EMP. It overloaded the safety mechanisms on the tank of fuel attached to the flamethrower that the vorcha was carrying… with explosive results. "Finish off the krogan first," I ordered. "Then deal with the other two vorcha. Make that one," I amended, seeing one of the surviving vorcha succumb to his injuries.

With the situation well in hand, I took a quick peek at the logs from the basement sensors. Shepard had evidently closed one of the shutters. "Can one of you give me Shepard's comm frequency?"

After Jacob gave it to me, I opened a channel. "There's two more shutters," I told Shepard.

"Um, guys?" Kasumi said nervously. "We've got another merc coming our way. And he's a big one."

Krogan. Wonderful. "Get them closed fast," I finished.

Mordin hit the krogan in the face with another fireball. The krogan staggered before ripping off his helmet. I guess the intense heat had melted his visor and impaired his vision. Too bad it made it hilariously easy to attack. Krogan regeneration might be capable of several miracles, but it couldn't stop a bullet from turning the brain into mush.

Two more vorcha were starting to cross the bridge. They paused when the krogan fell, looked at each other, shrugged, then continued. "Here they come," I murmured. "There aren't too many... yet."

The spirits took that as a challenge. No sooner had we dispatched the two vorcha than another five appeared. With a krogan. It didn't take long before we had to duck. I started to contact Shepard again, then realized that I never actually closed the comm channel. Oops. "Taking some fire, Shepard," I informed him. "We can't hold out long on two fronts like this."

The krogan and his vorcha companions were halfway across the bridge now. I reluctantly switched to my assault rifle, needing its superior rate of fire over the sniper rifle's undeniably powerful damage. "Jacob. Can your biotics do anything to lift the Blood Pack up?"

"Maybe," he replied, "but we'd need to damage their hardsuits first. Otherwise, the eezo powering their shields might counteract my biotic field."

"Then that's what we're going to do," I told them. "On three… two… one…"

We popped up and opened fire. I quickly used my HUD to assign targets to each team member. Didn't think of the four of us as a team before. Funny how facing adversity can do that. The Blood Pack responded with an equally ferocious barrage, of course, but we managed to deal enough damage first. "Jacob: now!"

Jacob reached out with an arm and yanked it back with a twisting motion. A blue flare of light surrounded the vorcha before they started to float up into the air. The krogan kept moving towards us, though he was now gliding more than walking. "Mordin, give them another dose of plasma. While I hit the krogan with concussive rounds while everyone else take out the vorcha."

Between Mordin's fireball and the two concussive rounds, the krogan didn't know what hit him. We managed to wipe out the rest of the vorcha as well.

Unfortunately, three krogan and eight vorcha were now heading our way. I checked the basement sensors again and contacted Shepard. "Just one more shutter. Hurry!"

"_We're on our way. Just hang on."_

"They're getting more aggressive, Shepard," I warned. "We won't be able to keep this up for long."

I left the comm channel open and returned my attention to the battle in front of me. By this point, the team had figured out what to do. Mordin targeted one of the krogan with his plasma rounds. Then we all opened fire. I switched back to my sniper rifle, squeezing the trigger as fast as I could. The others shared my sense of urgency. I cast my mind back to try and recall roughly how many shots everyone had fired. If I was right: "Kasumi, you're probably close to using up your thermal clip. Reload now."

Kasumi ducked down to reload. "Why?" she wanted to know.

"To stagger our fire and lay down a constant stream of bullets so we don't have to reload at the same time."

"Oh. That makes sense."

We managed to take down all three krogan and five of the vorcha, taking turns to reload as needed. Unfortunately, there were still three more vorcha. Plus another four vorcha that started to cross the bridge. And another krogan. "Damn," I said, loud enough so that Shepard could hear me over the comm. "More trouble on the bridge. I can't keep up."

"Running low on thermal clips," Jacob warned.

"There's a batch of six or seven in the spare bedroom at the far end of the room," I replied. "Grab them and hurry back."

Jacob bolted for the cache while the rest of us opened fire. We managed to take out the three vorcha before their reinforcements caught up. Mordin launched another fireball, targeting the krogan again. I sent a single bullet right through his thick skull, then loaded a concussive round and fired at one of the vorcha. The impact sent him flying off his feet and into two of his companions.

By that point, Jacob had returned. He quickly slid thermal clips along the floor to each of us. Kasumi and Mordin reloaded. I checked my ammo counter and decided I was okay for now. Jacob evidently felt the same. Then we concentrated our fire on the last vorcha, finished him off. After that, it was a simple matter of filling the vorcha with bullets while they were still struggling to get up.

Any sense that that was a little unfair quickly went away when I saw what was coming next. Four krogan, about twenty vorcha and a couple varren. It was the krogan that worried me. Specifically, the one in the lead. "Okay, I take back what I said earlier," Kasumi frowned. _"That's _a big one."

"Garm," I hissed. "Leader of the Blood Pack. Bigger, meaner and tougher than any other Blood Pack merc—and he can heal faster than any of them too."

"That sounds bad," Jacob offered.

"He's also a biotic."

Jacob paled, an impressive feat considering his skin tone. "That sounds worse."

Mordin inhaled sharply. "Problematic," he offered.

"Yep. Take down as many mercs as you can. Don't bother with Garm for now." As fearsome as Garm would be, I'd rather deal with Garm alone than a wounded and pissed Garm followed by a bunch of cronies. I opened the comm again. "Get back here, Shepard," I urged. "They're coming in through the doors."

"_Almost there_," he replied. "_Just hang on_."

We took out two krogan and six vorcha before they entered the base. "Grab as many thermal clips as you need and take cover on the other side of the room," I ordered. As the other teammates complied, I moved to the window. I arrived just in time to see Garm stomp his way into the main room on the ground floor. "Rip them to shreds," he roared.

I was really tempted to fire at Garm. But a single shot wouldn't kill him. Right now, it was more important to reduce the number of trigger fingers. So I shot a vorcha instead.

Then I had to duck as every single Blood Pack merc wheeled around and sprayed the window with bullets. "Watch my back," I overheard Garm bellow. "I'll deal with Archangel."

Wonderful.

We had about a minute before Garm burst into the room. "Ideas?" Jacob asked.

"Open fire and don't stop," I replied.

No one else could come up with a better idea, so that's exactly what we did. Garm soaked up all the plasma and bullets we fired at him and responded with his shotgun. One of his shots would have taken my head off had my shields not soaked up the damage. Ducking down, I checked the sensor readings. Shepard, Miranda and Zaeed had killed a lot of hostiles, judging by the much-reduced number of life signs I was reading. There were only about half a dozen left. Five…

"Shepard, please hurry," I said with a calm I didn't really feel. "Garm's doing a really good job of pinning us down. Why don't you join us and give him someone else to shoot at?"

"_As horrifying as that sounds, I guess I'll accept," _Shepard replied. _"Don't go anywhere."_

Funny.

The four of us kept firing. It seemed that all we were doing was taking chunks of biotic energy out of his barrier. But as long as he was over there and not over here pounding us into fleshy pancakes, that was just fine with me. Besides, he was so mad, he forgot all about his biotics. Not complaining. At all.

Furthermore, the number of life-signs outside the room continued to drop. There were only four of them now. Three of them were heading our way with the fourth dot moving to intercept.

"Quit hiding!"

"Fine," we heard Zaeed reply. I guess he had ducked down behind cover or something and the merc—a krogan, judging by the timbre of his voice, was a bit frustrated.

We barely heard some more gunfire above the din that filled the room. A second later, Shepard, Miranda and Zaeed joined the fray. Whirling around, Garm opened fire on the newcomers. Mordin, Jacob and Kasumi didn't need me to tell them to shoot him in the back.

Garm soaked up enough biotic attacks, plasma and bullets to wipe out an entire squad. Make that two squads, I silently amended. And the beast was still standing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shepard stand up. What in the spirits was he doing, I wondered? Was he crazy or something. I watched as he lifted his sniper rifle…

…

…and vanished.

I couldn't believe it. One second, he was standing there. The next, he had disappeared. I recalled what I had overheard earlier. Maybe that was what the krogan was referring to.

A single shot rang out…

…Shepard shimmered back into view…

…Garm swayed…

…and collapsed. The floor shook again, as if the mercs had breached the basement again.

I stared at Shepard. This was a new trick of his. He looked back and shrugged. "I'm going to grab some thermal clips."

Well if he could be nonchalant, I could do the same. "Good idea," I nodded. "We'll do the same. Come find me when you're ready."

It didn't take long for him to restock. "Tough bastard," I said when he returned. "But I've seen worse."

"Sorry I didn't get back sooner," Shepard apologized.

While it would have been nice if he'd come back sooner, we hadn't really needed him until the last ten or fifteen minutes. "You came back at the right time," I disagreed. "We've just taken out Garm and his Blood Pack. This day just gets better and better. He was one tough son of a bitch."

"Garm mentioned you tangled with him before."

I managed to contain a shudder. "Yeah, I caught him alone once. None of his gang to help him."

It wasn't easy. I'd managed to lure him out with an e-mail that was sent to him 'accidentally.' He couldn't resist the chance to get his hands on some fresh thresher maw steaks and didn't want to share with the others. Always thinking with his stomach... My e-mail brought him to an alley, one I'd deliberately chosen because it was narrow enough to slow him down and because it had a catwalk from which I could fire down upon him. It was the perfect ambush.

"I still couldn't take him out," I continued, shaking my head as I recalled how the attack played out. "I've never seen a krogan regen that fast. He's a freak of nature. He just kept at it until his vorcha showed up. It was close, but I had to let him go.

"Not this time," he grinned, staring at Garm's bleeding hulk.

"Now we only have the Blue Suns to worry about," Shepard said.

"Yeah," I nodded slowly, re-evaluating the situation. Freelancers down. Eclipse and its mechs were eliminated. The Blood Pack and that son of a bitch Garm had been taken out. "Maybe we oughta take our chances and fight our way out," I thought aloud. "Tarak's got the toughest group, but nothing we haven't faced before. Besides, he won't be expecting to meet us head-on—"

"Get down!" Shepard yelled, lunging towards me. He knocked me over, just as a hail of bullets shattered the window. As I rolled behind a sofa and the rest of the squad dove for cover, I managed to glimpse a large silhouette.

The silhouette of an A-61 Mantis gunship. Only one man on Omega had one of those: Tarak, leader of the local chapter of the Blue Suns. One who had been instrumental in gathering every lowlife on Omega together ever since I dropped by his quarters uninvited. "Damn it!" I cursed. "I thought I took that thing out already!"

"Tarak had one of his goons fixing it," Shepard replied, raising his voice above the roar of the gunship's machine guns. "I made sure he wouldn't be able to fix it completely! If I'm reading this right," he added, tapping his helmet, "that thing is still at half-strength. Guess Tarak didn't want to wait."

He probably scanned it with his hardsuit's sensors. My own sensors confirmed his analysis.

"Even damaged, gunship adds force multiplier," Mordin warned. "Presence is problematic."

What concerned me were the six Blue Suns rappelling down. "They're unloading troops from the gunship!" I said. "Watch your back, Shepard!"

Shepard had things well in hand, though. On his orders, Miranda and Kasumi attacked one of the Blue Suns, hitting him with an EMP and a burst of biotic energy. Their timing was absolutely perfect. "This'll put him down," Zaeed declared, finishing that merc off with a concussive round.

I launched an EMP of my own, disabling the shields of two of the Blue Suns. Before I could follow up, Shepard and Mordin set both of them on fire. Meanwhile, Jacob was keeping another Blue Suns merc pinned down with his pistol. Shepard, Mordin and Kasumi abruptly turned their attention to that merc and opened fire. The poor fool never had a chance.

That left one merc. I belatedly recognized her as Jentha, one of Tarak's higher-ups. He really was pulling out all the stops if he sent her in with the first wave. He usually didn't do that with the senior mercs. Though in the end, she never really stood a chance. Kasumi and I drained her shields, Miranda cracked part of her armour with her biotics, Shepard popped a piece of armour plating clean off by vanishing, only to reappear as he fired his sniper rifle. Jacob got the kill shot with his shotgun.

Now that we were in the clear, I took another look at the building sensors and stifled a curse. "They're rappelling down the side wall," I told Shepard. "Ground floor!"

We ran over to one of the other windows, which looked down onto the main room below. Very nice spot to pick off mercs. I scoped and dropped one of the Blue Suns, ignoring the slight conflict I felt from killing a fellow turian. Shepard probably felt the same about sniping a human merc. The next couple kills were less of a problem.

Wow. Listen to me being so cavalier about taking lives. I'm going straight to hell, aren't I?

Unfortunately, the spirits saw fit to bless us with an abundance of targets. There was no way we could keep them all pinned down. "Keep firing, Garrus," Shepard said. "I'll head off anyone climbing the stairs."

While Shepard bolted for the stairs, I checked to see how the rest of the squad was doing. Miranda seemed to have taken over as de-facto leader, trying to keep any more Blue Suns from entering the base. Seeing that everything was under control, I dropped an EMP onto some hapless merc hands and began merrily sniping away. One shot, one kill. I love being a sniper.

After a few minutes, there were only three Blue Suns in the base. One seemed to be hiding in one of the rooms on the other side of the stairs, with no line of sight to any of us. Not an immediate threat, in other words. The other two were hiding at the bottom of the stairs. Shepard took out one of them. After I landed a headshot on the other, Shepard went hunting for merc number three.

"Miranda, any other visitors?" I asked.

She shook her head in confusion. "I don't see any other Blue Suns, but I can still hear Tarak's gunship flying around."

I couldn't hear a thing. She must have really good hearing. A quick check of my sensor logs confirmed her report: there was only one unidentified target out there. A big one. And it had to be airborne, considering how fast it was moving. I lifted my sniper rifle and started searching. Between my visor and my scope, I should be able to see something, I reasoned.

As it turned out, I heard something before I saw something. Maybe it was the gunship?

"_Archangel!" _

Shit. I whipped around, trying to focus on the source of that roar. I felt several thuds in my chestplate. It didn't hurt, though. Clearly I'd been shot. Either that or I was feeling my heart pound against my hardsuit. But I didn't feel any pain, which would lend some weight to the idea of my heart pounding. Unless I didn't feel any pain because I was in shock.

I decided the smart thing to do was to dive for cover. Like in the vids. Only I was already on the ground. Maybe I had fallen. Or collapsed. Either way, I was on the ground and out in the open. Gotta find cover, Garrus, I told myself.

"_You think you can screw with the Blue Suns?!"_ I heard Tarak roar from the gunship.

Um, well, yes. I'd been screwing with the Blue Suns for almost two years now. And Eclipse. And the Blood Pack. And various low-life freelancers. Bit of a player, I guess. I really should be ashamed. But that could wait until after I drilled a fifth eyehole into Tarak's ugly face.

"_This ends now!"_

I leaped up from my shelter and raised my sniper rifle…

…there was a flash of light…

* * *

><p>"<em>Garrus!"<em>

I don't really remember what happened next.

"_We're getting you out of here, Garrus. Just hold on. Radio Joker. Make sure they're ready for us."_

Shepard must have dealt with Tarak and the remaining Blue Suns.

"_He's not gonna make it."_

I felt cold. A deep, lethargic, numbing cold that seemed to seep through my body.

"_Medical scans show serious trauma. We need to repair that artery!"_

That probably wasn't a good thing.

"_My word. He took a direct impact from a _rocket_?"_

I was probably going into shock or something.

"_Come on, Garrus. Stay with us."_

Who knows? I might not even make it.

"_Prepare to insert mandibular prosthetic implant."_

Somehow, that was almost a relief.

"_Where's that unit of dextro-blood?"_

I'd gone to Omega to make a difference. To stop all the crime and corruption and suffering. But I couldn't even stop the rot building within my own ranks. If it wasn't for Shepard, I would've been done for.

"_There's been enough death for one day, young man. You're not getting off that easy!" _

I had my fun. My exultation. My moment where I thought things would be okay. But in the end, it was all thanks to Shepard. Shepard helped me finish off Eclipse. He helped me put down the Blood Pack. He had to take up the slack and finish off the Blue Suns. Maybe this was a sign from the spirits. I tried to be a hero, but I wasn't good enough. Maybe it was time to let the genuine article take over.

"_I think we've got it."_

Then again, maybe not. After all, Shepard might be able to save the day. But he could never do it quite so stylishly.

* * *

><p>Some humans follow this religion where worthy souls follow a bright light to another realm called heaven. This heaven, amongst other things, is noted for being bright, light and airy.<p>

Now I'm not human. I don't follow that religion. And I have serious doubts about my qualification to go to any sort of heaven. But I do recall following a light that gradually grew larger and brighter, probably as my eyelids started to crack apart. When my eyes fully opened, I found myself staring at the ceiling of a bright, white room with lights shining down on me. If this was heaven, then that meant two things: heaven is filled with a lot of technology and the spirits made one serious clerical error.

"Garrus?"

That voice... it sounded familiar. Before I could lift my head or move towards—

"Don't move."

Definitely sounded familiar.

Sure enough, a familiar face hovered overhead. "Welcome back, Garrus. You had us worried there."

Dr. Chakwas. Chief medical officer on the Normandy. Before it was shot to pieces over Alchera two years ago. What was she doing here?

Her answer was... slightly confusing: "Putting you back together. Thankfully, I didn't need all the king's horses or all the king's men."

I thought the Alliance was a democracy. Even if I was mistaken and it was, in fact, a monarchy, I still didn't see how equines would be of any medical benefit.

"How are you doing?"

"A little sore," I allowed. Actually, my jaw felt like it was on fire, my head was pounding and my ribs felt like a krogan trampled all over them. But I wasn't about to tell her that. I had my pride.

Dr. Chakwas's medical expertise, her keen observational skills and her omni-tool made short work of my pride. "Luckily for you, I don't take everything my patients say at face value. Still following Shepard's deplorable example, I take it?"

"Please. _He's _following _me_."

"Then shame on you for taking advantage of the Commander's gullible nature," she chided me without missing a beat.

I laughed, but only for a moment. My jaw really did hurt. "So it _is _the Commander? Really?"

"It's hard to imagine, I know. I have trouble wrapping my head around it myself. But it really is him. Shepard's back."

"But... how...?" I asked.

"It's complicated," Dr. Chakwas hedged.

"Try me."

"Shepard really did die, Cerberus brought him back from the dead, gave him a ship and crew and tasked him to investigate the recent rash of abductions involving human colonies. To that end, they drew up a list of potential recruits including 'Archangel'—which turned out to be you."

...

...

...

"Please close your mouth, dear. It's a tad rude. Besides, that mandibular implant's still settling in. If you put too much strain on it, I'll have to take it out and put in a new one. And I'm all out of dextro-anaesthetic."


	2. The Job

_Author's Note: This rest of this fanfic jumps forward in time, taking place immediately after Samara's loyalty mission._

**Chapter 2: The Job**

As hard as it was to imagine, Dr. Chakwas was serious. Shepard was back. From the dead. Thanks to Cerberus.

That's right: Cerberus. The pro-human-to-the-point-of-xenophobia terrorist group that occasionally dabbled in the field of mad science. The one that played around with husks, Thorian creepers and thresher maws at the expense of Alliance soldiers, civilians and colonies. Why did they do that? Because they wanted to help humanity and didn't care about their horrible PR problem. And because they had lots and lots of resources.

Resources like those of Cord-Hislop Aerospace—the company whose logo was displayed on the uniform of every Cerberus agent. Not to mention every other wall. Apparently, even terrorist movements weren't immune to corporate branding.

That was the hardest thing for me to swallow: Shepard had always done what he believed was right. He had a set of values, a code of conduct. There was always a certain leeway, of course. Just look at all the times he stopped to steal something. But there was always a line he would not cross. A point where he would stop, make his stand and go no further.

But now the man who looked—except for the scars—talked and stole like Shepard was working for Cerberus. Working for the enemy. Had he been brainwashed? Disillusioned by the short-sighted incompetence of the council and the Alliance? Feeling indebted to Cerberus for bringing him back from the dead?

Shepard said that there were plans to implant some kind of control chip or failsafe to ensure his loyalty, but the Illusive Man, the mysterious leader of Cerberus, had vetoed that plan. Dr. Chakwas assured me that despite the plethora of implants buried inside Shepard, there was no way to remotely control him. Of course, he could have been subject to some kind of mental conditioning. After hunting all over the galaxy for Saren and seeing firsthand the effects of indoctrination, I knew it was a distinct possibility. But for now, he was who he claimed to be.

I wouldn't blame him for feeling betrayed, though. The Alliance was torn between denying his existence and hunting him down as a traitor who'd joined Cerberus. The Council, useless pack of fools that they were, also preferred to believe he had become a terrorist. Apparently, it was easier than preparing for the Reapers or accepting the fact that the Collectors were actively and deliberately striking isolated human colonies. Oh, they reaffirmed his Spectre status and gave him their blessing to investigate the abductions. But that was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Except asking that he stay in the Terminus Systems. Away from Citadel space. Where they wouldn't have to see, hear or deal with him. And where his Spectre authority didn't actually carry any legal weight whatsoever. In other words, nothing more than accusations, empty promises and gutless compromises. Typical.

Nothing really hammered that point home than his encounter with Kaidan on Horizon. I could sympathize with Kaidan to some extent. Like him, I'd lived for over two years with the idea that Shepard was dead. That I'd failed him in some way. Desperately trying to find a way to come to terms with what had happened.

The difference was how we handled it. I dealt with my issues by trying to be a Spectre and failing. Then trying to be a C-Sec officer and failing. Then going to Omega, beating the crap out of scumbags, becoming the masked vigilante Archangel and... then... well, failing. If nothing else, I'm consistent.

Kaidan apparently went back to the Alliance and did everything he could to become the perfect mindless soldier. One who was completely obedient, totally unquestioning and absolutely willing to swallow the official line. Because it was easier than acknowledging the guilt he felt about not being able to help him or coming to terms with his grief.

So why did I believe Shepard—or, at least, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt—when Kaidan didn't? Was it my C-Sec training? Innocent until proven guilty? Did I know Shepard better than Kaidan? Or was it all just wishful thinking? A blind willingness to accept what was given to me rather than investigate and risk finding out the painful truth? A desperate hope that I hadn't offended the spirits as badly as I had thought and this was their way of throwing me a bone?

Maybe. Maybe it was the fact that we both had scars. Shared misery. With an upside. I mean, chicks dig scars. Right?

Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, Garrus. There's a reason you spend so much time calibrating the Normandy's guns. Not that I would ever tell anyone that. I have my pride, if not my face.

Anyway, without anyone else offering to help, Shepard was forced to rely on Cerberus. Using their ship—which was, I had to admit, pretty damn impressive. Their resources—which were quite remarkable. Their crew. Their recommendations regarding recruits and missions. But Shepard was the commander.

He led the squad, seeking out new additions, finding what they could offer, determining their strengths and how to deploy them on the battlefield. He was the one who led us into, through and out of a ridiculous amount of harrowing situations. The sheer regularity and predictability of these encounters was another sign that it was truly Shepard. Only he would have such appalling luck. Besides me, of course.

Another sign was his kleptomania. He still stole everything that wasn't nailed down. He also stole everything that was locked away after diligently hacking or bypassing whatever encryption algorithms or locking mechanisms were in his way. Thank the spirits I wasn't a C-Sec officer anymore. Otherwise, I'd have to arrest him. Boy, would that be an awkward conversation. "Thank you for saving my life. By the way, you're under arrest. You know the charges by now."

And Shepard still roamed the galaxy, blundering into wrongs that needed to be set right. Stopping for every random stranger that crossed his path. Learning all about them. Listening about their problems. Ready to help if he could.

That readiness to lend a hand extended to his squad. Somehow, Cerberus had hand-picked a squad that had major unresolved issues in their personal lives. Problems that needed to be resolved if they were ever going to move on and focus on their preparations for the Big Mission. The one that none of us were likely to come back from. Like I said: Cerberus sure knew how to pick 'em. Naturally, Shepard was ready to assist with those personal problems.

I was no exception. Hours of frantic digging and investigation had uncovered a lead on the Citadel. A way to find Lantar Sidonis. The betrayer who stabbed me in the back and let those mercs slaughter my squad. Men and women from so many species. I'd gotten to know them. Fight alongside them. Bleed and laugh with them. But I wasn't with them when they died. And it was all _his _fault.

Shepard had promised to help me sort things out. Just as soon as he helped Samara—a single-minded, humourless, scary justicar—out with her issues on Omega. Which was just as well.

I needed to have a drink with someone there anyway.

* * *

><p>Most people looking for a drink on Omega go to Afterlife. It's the first nightclub you bump into, depending on where your ship docked. It's the biggest nightclub on the station—all three stories of it. It has the best drinks. The best... well, the loudest music. <em>Definitely <em>the hottest dancers. Not to mention it reserves a private lounge for the Pirate Queen of Omega: Aria 'Don't Fuck With Me' T'Loak. If you go in for celebrity sightings or desperately want to see her for something. The lineups are a killer, of course, but what isn't?

Of course, there are some downsides. All the tourists go there, for starters. More importantly, it _is _Aria's favourite spot on Omega. Which means the chances that she's got eyes and ears on you are higher than average.

Which is why I went to Nowhere. Aside from being a moderately funny punch line, it's also low-key and nondescript. There's a small sign outside the bar, though it's usually covered with graffiti. Kids, these days. No lineups, which are always a bonus. No unnecessary conversations either. People go there to be alone with their thoughts and their drink. Sometimes for the occasional meeting, but only if it's civil. During my Archangel days, I spent a fair bit of time there. Not too much time. Wouldn't want to be predictable. But enough time that I could appreciate its subtler qualities.

It was 0300 when I opened the door and walked down the cheap stairs, each step making a loud groan like the metal was gonna snap. That was all by design, of course, so the customers could see you before you could see them. And if you'd pissed someone off, he or she would be able to spring a nasty surprise on you first. What about the rules? Well, they say it's better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission.

Nowhere had a mixed crowd, just like every other bar in the galaxy. Not exactly full, but there was a smattering of customers. I casually made my way to the wall and looked around. A volus was sprawled in a chair. He was probably high on red sand, judging by the way his bottle of beer was wobbling in the middle of the air. Reminded me of Niftu Cal on Illium. There was a pair of asari giggling and petting and groping each other. I had a feeling they were putting on a show for the rest of the customers. Or at least for the human who had one hand gripping his drink and the other hand... under the... table. I made a note to stay far away from him.

Over in the corner, a krogan was nursing his drink and telling his tale of woe to anyone who wanted to listen and everyone who didn't. Seemed he finally had sex with his human girlfriend. Bad idea: between the sex itself and the flopping of spirits-knows-how-many-kilograms of krogan on top of her after coitus, said girlfriend had a lot of internal trauma. Plus several crushed ribs and seriously squished organs. By some minor miracle, she was still alive, albeit in intensive care at one of Omega's dodgy medical clinics. The table of salarians, batarians and humans next to him were laying bets on when the poor girl would succumb to her injuries and croak.

I recognized the bartender serving tonight. Laseen. Asari. No one knew her family name. Or how she got that scar that ran across her left eye. The last idiot who persisted in asking how she got it was drowned in a barrel of beer. That barrel was subsequently sold to the Blood Pack. They thought it was funny as hell. And very refreshing. They were very disappointed to hear that 'Dead-Guy-in-Beer' was a very limited time offer.

Before I could make any more observations, I heard a loud clattering as someone raced down the stairs into PQ. The customers paused what they were doing.

"I'm rich! I'm rich!"

A turian came into the bar, a bounce in his step and a wide grin on his face. Either he'd just won the jackpot or he'd just had the best sex of his life. "Hello there!" he beamed. "Isn't it a wonderful night?"

"You're not getting any more credit, Pentus," Laseen said flatly.

"Credit?" Pentus laughed. "I don't need credit."

"Is that why you needed to put those five drinks on your tab last week? And the three drinks the week before? And let's not forget that bottle of wine you chugged last month."

"Well, those dark days are over," Pentus declared. "My clients on Bekenstein finally paid up. Do you know what that means?"

"Your worries are over, you can sleep peacefully once more, you can live again. Praise the spirits."

Pentus looked disappointed. No doubt Laseen had summarized what he'd been saying for spirits knew how long, but without the drama or panache.

"So does this mean you're finally going to pay your tab?" Laseen asked.

"Absolutely. Now why don't you get me a drink? I'm in the mood for a nice shot of Noverian rum."

"I'm in the mood for you to settle up and pay."

With a mighty sigh, Pentus plopped his ass down on a barstool. "Can I have a drum roll, please?" he requested.

Laseen glared at him. He threw his hands up in a dramatic gesture of surrender, reached into his pocket and dug out a fistful of credits. Based on the denominations I could see, he had anywhere from fifty to one hundred thousand credits. In hard currency. And he'd been carrying it around all this time. Idiot.

Before Pentus could continue the show, Laseen reached out, yanked the wad of credits out of his talons, took half of it and returned the rest. "Thank you for your business," she said, smiling for the first time. "Maybe you should hurry over to Afterlife and pay Aria. Word on the street is you owe her too."

"Aria?" Pentus sneered. "I think not. I've worked long and hard to earn this payday. I've got a date with the best drinks and hookers credits can buy. Aria can just sit her blue ass down and wait until I'm ready to pay her."

The entire room fell silent. Everyone instinctively backed away from the fool... with one exception. I shook my head. Here we go...

Laseen raised an eyebrow. "You're actually gonna stiff Aria?"

Pentus laughed long and hard. No one joined him. "What Aria doesn't know won't hurt her."

"But she does know."

All the bravado drained out of Pentus. He slowly turned around. Standing behind him, arms crossed, stood Sanak. Batarian. One of Aria's more infamous enforcers. "Aria's very happy to hear about your good fortune," he growled. "She'll be even happier when you pay her back for all the loans you took out. With interest, of course."

Pentus hesitated. Big mistake. Sanak took a step forward and kneed him in his stomach. As Pentus doubled over, Sanak grabbed him firmly by the neck and rammed his head once, twice, three times into a nearby table top. Then he crouched down and scooped up all the credits that Pentus had dropped. "Pleasure doing business with you," Sanak smirked.

Laseen coughed.

"What? I didn't break the table or anything," Sanak protested.

Laseen glared.

"You can barely see the dent."

Laseen put her hands on her hips.

"This is because I didn't pay for that last drink, isn't it?"

"Damn straight."

"Fine." Sanak handed over a credit chit before leaving. I waited until the door closed before making my way towards the bar, gingerly stepping over Pentus. Laseen already had a glass of turian brandy waiting for me. I nodded my thanks and tossed a ten-credit chit on the counter—unlike some turians, I pay for my drinks—and made my way to the corner table.

Neal Cooper was already waiting for me. Human. Dark hair, pale skin, piercing blue eyes, expensive suit. He claimed he was an intergalactic banker with a diverse portfolio of clients. I had my doubts. Bankers usually don't travel alone. Not in the Terminus Systems. He'd fed me some good intel before, intel I'd used to thwart a lot of crimes—another point to suggest that he was more than an intergalactic banker. And let's not forget that said crimes had a notable impact on intergalactic affairs. But as long as he kept giving me intel, I was willing to overlook his lies. At least, until I found out what he _really _was up to.

"Mr. Vakarian," he greeted me.

"Mr. Cooper," I returned. "How are you? Good, good. And the kids? Aw, that's cute. They grow up so fast, don't they."

Cooper looked slightly bemused. "Very funny, Mr. Vakarian."

"Just cutting through the social bullshit. You contacted me requesting a meeting regarding an urgent matter, using pre-arranged codes that _you _said were to be used only for emergencies, and you somehow knew that I'd be able to meet you on Omega."

I might be willing to overlook his lies, but that didn't mean I had to sit there and listen to them. There was a certain traitor who needed killing, after all.

"All right," Cooper relented. "This is an emergency. It's kind of personal."

"Okay."

"I, uh, I don't know where to begin."

"From the beginning's usually a good place to start."

"Right. Um. Okay."

Spirits, give me strength…

"I have a cousin."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't get me wrong: I love him. I really do. But he has a knack for getting into trouble."

Boy, did _that _sound familiar or what?

"Mostly because he's thinks he's a hero. Bit of a hacktivist, I guess. Too many secrets in the galaxy, there are too many secrets being kept from the public, people shouldn't be afraid of their governments because governments should be afraid of their people. That sort of thing."

"And your cousin stumbled onto something in his efforts to make a difference," I guessed.

"Yeah," Cooper nodded. "He said he'd been working late one night… you know what, you don't need the full story. What's important is that he struck the mother lode: a list of every undercover agent from various governments. Systems Alliance, Asari Republics, Salarian Union. He even said he found some agents from the Turian Hierarchy—I didn't know they _had _undercover agents!"

I felt a horrible sinking feeling in my gizzard. If this was legit, releasing all that data for any idiot to see would be disastrous. The political fallout alone would be unimaginable. Not to mention the lives of all those secret agents would suddenly be in jeopardy. "Does he know what a… what is the human phrase?"

"Pandora's box?"

"Sure," I said, not knowing who this Pandora was. But it sounded about right.

"Honestly," Cooper sighed, "I don't think he cares. Like I said, he's a hacktivist. But he is aware that publishing this list would make him into something of a pariah in Citadel space. That's why he's fled to the Terminus Systems. It's out of their jurisdiction."

Somehow, I don't think that would really matter. Especially since this involved spy stuff. Those guys—and gals—never take legal boundaries all that seriously. Part of the reason why I used to love the idea of them as a kid. Still do, I guess. "Do you know where in the Terminus Systems?" I asked.

"Here."

"Omega? What, he's hoping to find sanctuary with Aria?"

Cooper spread his hands helplessly. "I guess. All I know is that he's here."

"And what do you want me to do about it?" I asked.

"Find him and convince him that if he doesn't change his mind, he's gonna get whacked."

"You couldn't convince him and you're his cousin," I pointed out. "What makes you think he'll listen to a total stranger?"

"He won't listen to a stranger. But even he's heard of Archangel."

Uh oh. "I don't follow," I told him, trying to keep any hint of nervous panic out of my voice. "I mean, haven't you heard? Archangel's dead. Along with pretty much everyone who ever worked for him."

"But you're still alive, right? Maybe if you drop Archangel's name, that'll do the trick."

Apparently, Cooper didn't know I was Archangel. Or he did, but he was willing to pretend. Until I knew for sure, I was willing to pretend as well. "Do you have a picture of this guy?"

Nodding, Cooper activated his omni-tool and uploaded an image file. I did a quick scan for viruses—can't be too careful, these days—and opened it. Dark hair, blue eyes. Average skin tone for a human. "Any idea where I might find him?"

"Not really. Though the last time he came here, he said he had a great time at some place called Exava's."

That said _volumes _about Cooper's cousin. But I didn't tell him that. If he knew, it would be impolite to bring it up. If he didn't, it might be kinder to keep him in the dark. "I guess I can look around," I told him. "I can't guarantee anything, mind you. But if I find him, I'll try to dissuade him from doing anything stupid."

Cooper's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thank you," he said fervently. "Thank you so much. Oh, you have no idea how much this means to me."

"Hey! You!"

Two turians came up to the table. I'd spotted their approach earlier. Hard to miss, especially when they were barefaced. I glanced at them, then turned back to Cooper. "Don't worry. Everything'll be all right."

"Yeah," one of the barefaced turians said. "It'll be all right, human, as long as you come with us."

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"Hierarchy business. None of your concern," the second bareface snapped.

"Where's your badge?" I challenged. "All officials in the Hierarchy have badges. That's what my father told me. And all those vids I watched when I was a kid."

They looked at each other, no doubt wondering whether I was serious. While they were distracted, I took the opportunity to take my glass of brandy and toss its contents in their bare faces. There wasn't much left, but it was enough that they had to wipe the brandy out of their eyes. Which gave me plenty of time to fry their shields with an EMP, stand up, grab them firmly by their horns and bash their heads together. Not quite as lethal as a bullet, but effective nonetheless. Besides, it meant I didn't have to waste time pulling one of my guns out. I turned back to reassure Cooper that everything was okay.

But he was gone.

I looked around, but I couldn't find him. He'd disappeared without a trace, as if he had never even been here.

Very curious indeed.

* * *

><p>To be honest, I didn't need another sign that Cooper's plight, and his cousin's, was serious. I'm not <em>that <em>dense. I know it might seem that way, given how I blew off a steady job with a reliable, if somewhat laughable, amount of income. Twice. The fact that I was so eager to fight or shoot people is... unfortunate. Then you have to consider that I thought going to Omega to fight crime and corruption was a _good _idea. And I still thought it was a good idea despite losing my squad, almost dying and bearing the scars to show how close I'd come to death. Most importantly, there was that suicide mission that I'd cheerfully signed myself up for.

Under the circumstances, I guess I can't blame the spirits for questioning my intelligence and giving me another sign that helping Cooper out for free-because, let's face it, payment was never actually discussed during our conversation. Another black mark against my smarts-was an exquisitely horrible idea.

It all started when I came out of Nowhere-no jokes, please. Trust me. Everyone else has done it and they usually didn't have my cutting wit or gift for snark. Anyway, I did a quick look around when I left Nowhere. Not a bad idea in general, definitely a good idea on Omega. Especially in this case.

The sign that this was more serious than some random and innocuous assignment were the mercs. By itself, that wasn't an unusual sight. You may not know this, but there are mercs on Omega. Lots of them. After a while, you either get numb to their presence or burn yourself out with all the stress. Or you get an adrenaline surge just thinking about all the noise and gunfire and blood. Bottom line: seeing mercs isn't unusual. Neither is the fact that all of the mercs within visual range were from Eclipse. Slightly concerning, considering they might have the same agenda, but not unusual.

What caught my attention was the fact that they were split up into two distinct groups. One group was exclusively asari. One group was exclusively salarian. For all Eclipse's many flaws, they're fairly open-minded about having a heterogeneous mix of troops. The only exception I'd seen was on Illium, where we ran into a local Eclipse group that was almost entirely composed of asari. Otherwise, you'll see humans, asari and salarians working together. Not segregated by species.

Both groups seemed to be aggressively questioning any unlucky soul who passed by. Were they working for the same side? That is, were they both Eclipse? If so, why split up into asari-only and salarian-only factions? If not...

If they weren't Eclipse, then there were only a few likely scenarios. Maybe they were all wannabes or really, really tired of living. The chances of that many asari and that many salarians having a collective death wish were slim. The other option, sparked in part by my earlier conversation with Cooper, was that I was looking at a bunch of spies. Or covert, black-ops, spec ops, whatever-term-you-wanted agents-slash-operatives. Asari huntresses and STG operatives, judging by the makeup.

Right now, they seemed totally oblivious to each other. Maybe they were really so fixated on their aggressive questioning that they completely missed the other party. Common sense and my hilariously bad string of luck suggested that they were both pretending to ignore each other. The spy equivalent of a ceasefire.

Ideally, I'd casually walk in some random direction that avoided both groups. But it didn't look like that was possible. Certainly no one else in front of me was able to pull it off. So that was out.

I could try turning around and retreating back into Nowhere. Maybe grab another glass of turian brandy and actually finish it this time. But that would draw too much attention to me. One of the salarians was already looking in my general direction.

The simplest thing to do was go to one of the groups, answer their questions as vaguely as possible and leave. But that would leave both groups healthy and at full strength.

Which left me with one more option.

Turning slightly to the left, I slowly made my way towards the huntresses. Not directly, of course. But my path meant that the STG unit would have to go well out of their way to intercept me. I kept my head down, making sure I wasn't looking at their eyes and _definitely _looking at, well, something else. Just a little further… wait for it…

"Hey! You there!"

…just a little bit further…

"Turian!"

That's me! "Yeah?" I mumbled. "Whaddya want?"

"We're looking for a human."

"Why?"

"We've got business with him."

"I'd like to have business with you if you know what I mean," I smirked.

The huntress ignored me. "Can you take a look at the picture on this datapad?"

…

"Can you stop staring at my tits and look at this datapad?"

"Huh? What? Oh. Right." I paused before adding "What were you saying?"

With a great deal of exaggerated patience, the huntress repeated her question. I could see her roll her eyes too. Another turian acting like all the other non-asari: drooling over a piece of blue ass and getting hard just thinking about all the implausible and highly unlikely options. Goddess help her. Classify as a typical encounter, file away and forget just as easily. Which was the point, after all. I could never pull this off with a salarian.

Besides, the asari _were _better looking.

I slowly turned my attention to the datapad, as if I was reluctant to tear my attention away. It was Cooper's cousin. Or alleged cousin. The more I thought about it, the more I had my doubts about Cooper's story. But the only way I was going to get to the bottom of this was to find him. Which meant getting the asari and the salarians sidetracked.

"Hey. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen him. He was hanging out with some salarians."

"Describe them."

"I'd rather describe what I'd like to do with y—_erk_!"

One disadvantage of pretending to be a pervert: you can't really protest when they take offence and demonstrate how pissed off they are. "Describe them," the huntress hissed.

"Gah."

"Now."

"Geurgh."

I made a feeble and not entirely faked attempt to loosen her grip. She waited for an agonizing ten seconds before complying. "Grey skin. Big eyes. Typical-looking, for salarians."

"Wait, wait, wait," I hastily added when the huntress's eyes narrowed. "I remember: they were all wearing Eclipse hardsuits. Kinda like yours but without, you know, boobs."

"Ha!" one of the other huntresses burst out, spinning around to glare at the STG, who were still interviewing civvies. "I _knew _they had him. Didn't I tell you?"

"Surprised they're still here," I rasped, just to throw fuel on the fire. "Their ship's prepped and ready for departure. At least, that's what they said."

"Not if I have anything to say about it. Come on, girls!"

The huntress dropped me to the ground and started striding towards the salarians, the rest of her asari companions quickly falling in line. The salarians quickly dropped the pretence of ignoring them and lined up to face them. I couldn't actually hear the conversation, but it seemed pretty heated. Fingers were pointed. Hands were placed on weapons. Everything was primed and ready to go. Just needed one more spark…

With no one paying attention to me, I found a dark corner and pulled out my assault rifle. Peering through the scope, I searched until I found the right target. Now as long as none of the asari moved… I focused on the target, breathed in, laid a talon on the trigger, breathed out… and… squeezed.

My bullet went right between two asari huntresses and landed squarely on one of the salarians. Didn't kill him, but he did stagger back. More importantly, they all heard the sound of a gunshot. Weapons were drawn, as each group thought the other had broken their unspoken truce. Any civvies in the area immediately vacated the premises—standard procedure when you live on a hellhole as violent as Omega. Holstering my assault rifle, I did the same.

Behind me, I could hear the fighting begin. Quick rat-tat-tats rang out, punctuated by dull, solid thuds. Sharp cracks of energy sizzled through the air, interrupted by shouts, cries and the odd screams. I really should get going, I told myself. It wasn't safe to be here, I told myself.

I stopped and turned back to watch the ensuing carnage. Just like everyone else, I told myself.

They were really going at it. As I watched, a rather butch-looking asari huntress hauled a salarian up into the air. He wriggled and squirmed, legs frantically kicking as if he was treading water. Then the asari yanked her arm down. You could actually feel the floor shake when the salarian landed.

As if in retaliation, a pair of salarians was hiding behind one of the support columns. One of them somehow disabled the barriers of a huntress with a click of his omni-tool. The other must have disrupted her nervous system, judging by the way she went rigid and jerked about. I'd seen Mordin pull that trick once or twice. Not too often, though. Like Shepard, he had a fondness for burning things. And people. Another reason why I'm glad I'm not in C-Sec anymore.

The salarians had just enough time to put her down before another huntress saw what they were up to. She thrust her hand out and clenched her fist. A split second later, the column _exploded_. Not the entire column, mind you. Just the bottom. Enough to send one salarian into the wall. I don't care how flexible they are, when the angle of your neck is such that your head is pointing towards your feet, you're probably not getting back up.

The other salarian found himself floating in the air, where the huntresses amused themselves by taking random pot-shots at him. Like a feline predator toying with a rodent.

I watched my handiwork for another ten seconds before telling myself I should really get going. One of the salarians set an asari on fire, only to get decapitated by what looked like a whip of biotic energy. Several more salarians and asari died in a more conventional manner, their bodies riddled with bullet holes. It was almost a full minute before I actually turned and walked away.

They do say you should take pride in your work, after all…

* * *

><p>As I made my way through the grimy streets of Omega and blended into the crowd, I began thinking about everything that had happened. I'd made contact with an old source who'd manipulated me into finding his 'cousin'—sounded better than I got conned like a sucker by some sob story—whose information could have galaxy-shattering repercussions. The severity of this situation had been punctuated by the arrival of representatives from two Citadel races, who were so eager to get their hands on this intel that they were willing to go to blows with each other rather than risk losing this prize.<p>

Clearly I needed to find this guy. Fast.

Back in my Archangel days, I'd get the squad together and we'd go hunting. My squad was dead, one traitor notwithstanding. But that was okay: I had a new squad. At least, I was part of a new squad.

Still, that didn't necessarily mean I should get them involved. Not all of them anyway.

By this point, Shepard's squad consisted of thirteen men and women, from multiple species and various origins. Even on Omega, that kind of makeup would stand out. The size of the squad would certainly attract attention. And attention was absolutely the _last _thing I wanted. Especially if that attention made someone put two and two together and recognize the squad leader as the supposedly dead Commander Shepard and his trusty turian partner—not sidekick—as the supposedly dead Archangel. We'd either wind up leading someone to the 'cousin,' get ourselves killed or both.

So a smaller team would be more suited. Easier to blend into the crowd, easier to evade rival parties, more mobile. But who to choose?

Yours truly, of course, since I'd spent the last year or so running through every sludge-filled alley and crawling through every blood-stained ventilation shaft. I knew the terrain. Besides, this was my job. My case. I had to be there.

Shepard was the next choice. I know, I know: after all I said about someone recognizing Shepard and I. But the two of us might slip by unnoticed in a small team. Besides, he had a knack for getting out of trouble, even if it was because he had an equally strong gift for stumbling _into _trouble in the first place. And he had a way of getting people to talk without resorting to crude threats. Skill, subtlety and tact. Though he didn't have nearly as much magic with the sniper rifle as I did. Just saying.

Next, I needed someone who had the intimidation factor down pat. Grunt would be the natural choice. I mean, have you ever tried staring down a krogan? Let me tell you: it ain't easy. Unfortunately, this job also required subtlety and tact. Grunt had never heard of those words. Zaeed would be better. Not as much muscle, but way more street smarts. He'd been on Omega several times himself hunting bounties, so he knew Omega almost as well as I did. And speaking of bounties, his reputation would carry a lot of weight. He could make grown men piss their pants. Of course, there was the risk that he'd bore them to death with his tall tales, but you gotta take the good with the bad.

You'd think three would be enough. But I was looking for one more. As talented as Shepard, Zaeed and I were, there was one area that we were all sorely lacking in: biotics. Also known as magic, psionics, the Force and voodoo to any uneducated and woefully misinformed idiot who didn't know how the galaxy worked—which meant one in every three random people. And I'm being generous.

Putting said fools aside, we had five possible choices: Miranda, Samara, Jacob, Thane and Jack. Samara was out. While she was probably our strongest biotic, she had a bad habit of viewing everything in stark, inflexible black or white. Nothing about Omega was that simple. Sure, she said she'd subsume her big fancy Justicar Code to follow Shepard's lead, but who was to say how long that would last? Better to leave her behind.

Jack would be a good choice. Her tattoos alone would blend in with the population on Omega. And her biotics were very impressive. However, this job would require a lot of walking, a lot of asking questions a lot of listening to answers, and a very judicious use of force. Jack would probably start a fight at the worst possible time just because she was bored. Besides, staring at her tattoos for any length of time gave me a migraine. So she was out.

In terms of demeanour, Jacob would be the optimal choice. He obeyed orders. He didn't like to rock the boat too much. And he was fairly easy-going and friendly. Not too friendly—that honour would go to Kelly. Truth be told, she was probably the main reason why I avoided the upper decks. But back to Jacob. The main problem with him was that his biotics were probably the weakest out of the four choices. They were undeniably effective, but somewhat limited in scope and power.

Under any other circumstances, Thane would be perfect. Like Jacob, he was quiet and knew how to follow orders. Pretty good with the sniper rifle. One of the best in the squad when it came to disappearing—I think only Kasumi could beat him. Maybe Shepard. Definitely one of the best when it came to close-quarters combat. And the other skills he'd picked up as an assassin could probably be used on this job. Unfortunately, his biotics were also on the weaker side compared to some of the other squadmates.

That left Miranda. In terms of sheer power, she was neck-to-neck with Samara or Jack. Maybe a little weaker, but not by much. Certainly no one could beat her in terms of the sheer versatility and breadth to which she could apply her biotic skills. Besides, her tactical and strategic acumen was almost on par with yours truly. Or Shepard, though I personally felt he was stronger at battlefield tactics than overall strategy.

When I first met Miranda, I thought she was a cold, ruthless zealot, fully committed to the Cerberus cause and damn anything that stood in the way. I still thought she could be cold and ruthless. And there was no doubt that she was a Cerberus operative—there was a reason she sported their emblem like a badge of honour. But the way she identified and reacted in certain instances suggested she'd had some experience with things like negotiation. Interrogation. Probably seduction, judging by the clothes she wore and the way humans reacted. I'm not really into humans myself, but I could appreciate that she was an extremely attractive woman. That could come in handy.

Besides, I had the feeling that there was something going on between Shepard and Miranda. Nothing concrete, mind you. No hard evidence or facts. But a long list of observations suggested that there was something… not off… but different. The way they interacted with each other was slightly different than the way they greeted everyone else. Maybe I was wrong. Sadly, it wouldn't be the first time. But this job might be a golden opportunity to find out.

So there was my list: Shepard, Zaeed and Miranda. Not necessarily in that order. And I knew the one spot where I could find all three of them.

Good thing too. Judging by what I'd seen so far, I'd _definitely_ need the backup.


	3. Club Hopping, Omega-Style

**Chapter 3: Club Hopping, Omega-Style**

For all their differences, it's amazing how much people have in common. Think I'm wrong? You should walk a mile in my boots and observe their behaviour on Omega.

Some are rich. Some are poor. There are men and women, seniors and children, members of just about every race who discovered spaceflight or mass effect technology. They came from Earth, Palaven, Sur'Kesh, Thessia and a hundred other worlds. But if this is their first time to Omega, then they invariably act the same way. They watch the view screens or windows with rapt attention, faces bright and excited as the station grows larger. Some even press their noses against them, as the smudges will attest.

They might be kids possessed of too many credits and not enough sense. Students who'd just finished their final exams and were ready to blow off some steam. Civvies on holiday who are looking for a thrill. People who want to dance on the wild side. Criminals all excited to enter the galactic gangster's paradise. But when they pour out onto the streets of Omega, one by one and two by two, they all slow down. Their eyes widen. Their mouths might drop. There's a lot of excited whispers. Pointing of fingers, talons, tentacles and so on. They race down the streets, eager to take in all the delights that are promised to them. Bedazzled by the brilliant neon lights announcing all the pleasures that await. The drinks and the drugs that they only heard about but never dared to try. Fun things like a round of poker or placing bets on varren races. It's a fantasy come to life. A paradise. A dream come true.

But all dreams must come to an end.

By the time they wake up and rub the stars from their eyes, Omega has changed. Sometimes it only takes a night. Sometimes it takes a few more return trips. Sometimes it's the realization that they have nowhere else to go. Nowhere that would accept them. Whatever the situation, everyone realizes that Omega isn't a magical place. It isn't a fairy tale come true. It's real. Real and grimy and gritty and dirty. Now the streets are filled with pools of spilled beer, vomit and blood—some of it still drying—all rank and vile. Garbage, glass, condoms and bodies fight for space, sometimes settling for mutual coexistence. That's when you see the filth, the suspicious eyes, the bulges that might be guns—all cast in a harsh light by the ever-present neon. That's when you see the deep shadows hiding things that wouldn't dare be seen walking about, even on Omega.

That's when the pleasures you thought you enjoyed, the sins you thought you were reveling in, become... mundane. Ordinary. Boring. You think you've seen and done it all. Slept with everything that had a pulse and maybe a few that didn't. That nothing in the galaxy could possibly surprise you at this point. That's when you start looking for something more... extreme.

That's when you go to establishments like Exava's.

It's the kind of place you go to when you're looking for new temptations to fall for and new depravities to wallow in. At Exava's, pain is just another word for pleasure. When sharp knives and spikes are toys rather than weapons. Where tight leather and corsets are standard and the whips are always nearby. For clients who spent so long pushing their minds and bodies in the pursuit of hedonism that only extreme pleasures would satisfy them now. And if they died—with a smile, a moan or a scream—well, no one could say they didn't get what they paid for.

The four of us stood there outside Exava's and studied it from a safe distance. The edifice was built of dark metal, polarized glass and probably a couple litres of blood. Holo-images flickered over the façade, displaying an ever-changing montage of sexual positions and possibilities that aroused and horrified in equal measures. That was Exava's for you: the warped offspring of an unholy union between insatiable cruelty and overwhelming passion.

I'd been in this neighbourhood more than once during my days as Archangel. I even had to go into Exava's once. For a mission—I'm not that kind of turian, after all. Still have the scars. I watched the reaction of my squad—no, this was smaller than a squad. More like a team. I watched my teammates to see how they reacted.

Shepard, to my amusement, was taken aback. His lips kept parting, ever so slightly, before his conscious mind caught up and closed them. For all his worldliness, for all the things he'd done and the horrors he'd seen, apparently he'd missed this sort of place.

Zaeed had a lewd grin on his face. No doubt some of his bounties had come here—or somewhere like here—to hide. Or they were known to come to such establishments because they were that depraved. The way his lip curled, ever so slightly, suggested he occasionally came here for... personal business. I suppose everyone needs to release some tension.

Miranda put up a facade. A polite mask of disinterest that was belied by the way her eyes kept darting all over the place. Observing, assessing, calculating, making fresh assessments based on earlier calculations, re-calculating and so on. Her outfit was new. Still bore the Cerberus logo and colours and highlighted her curves, but it was mostly in black. If she was asari instead of human, she'd fit right in. Spirits, she might still fit in as a customer.

"So this is where the little bugger likes to go," Zaeed said. "I like him already."

"You would," Miranda muttered.

"So... how do we do this?" Shepard wanted to know. "Just waltz in the front door and flash that guy's pic in people's faces?"

"I have a better idea."

Shepard, Zaeed and I looked at each other blankly, then hurried to catch up to Miranda, who was striding towards the front door to Exava's. Her pace very clearly stated to anyone who watched that they should step aside or get stepped on. Given the look of cold determination on her face and the length of her heels, I couldn't blame people for scurrying out of her way.

Miranda finally slowed down. Couldn't risk walking into the door, after all. Oh and the bouncers. One batarian, one human. Both sporting the kind of musculature that comes from an unhealthy mix of hard exercise and harder steroids. She turned around, snapped her fingers and made a 'Hurry up' motion. The rest of us quickly joined her.

"Whaddya want?" the batarian asked.

There was a pause.

"Well, answer him!" Miranda snapped, glaring at Shepard. He flinched. Actually, honestly, swear to the spirits flinched. He might have even jumped. I was sure glad that I wasn't in his boots right now.

Miranda rolled her eyes. "You see what I have to put up with?" she asked plaintively.

I think they did. To be honest, I wasn't sure whether they envied or pitied Shepard.

With a dramatic sigh, Miranda continued. "I have an appointment with Mistress Sin. Or rather, my boyfriend does."

Wow. Hadn't heard that name in almost a year. More interesting was what she had called Shepard. Maybe it was real. Maybe it was a cover for the mission. Either way, it was news to me. And Zaeed. Not to mention Shepard. Unfortunately, the bouncers saw that too. "Really?" the human asked. "Cause… looks like he didn't know."

It did. It really did. Interesting…

"I booked it for him today. Spur of the moment thing. Call it a reward for actually remembering our six month anniversary. Just when I thought he wasn't trainable too."

"Um…" Shepard began, trying to gain control of the situation. "Honey…"

"Did I give you permission to speak?" Miranda barked.

Shepard stood to attention. A brief arm-twitch told me he suppressed the urge to salute just in the nick of time. That would have _really _been bad. The "No, ma'am" he barked out was a little too military, but hopefully the bouncers would buy it.

"Exactly." Miranda turned around and glared at the bouncers. "Now then. If you will excuse us?"

The bouncers looked at each other and stepped aside. "If you're ever between jobs, Lady Exava's always looking for new… staff," the batarian murmured. "She usually goes for asari but for you, I think she'll make an exception. She doesn't advertise, of course."

Miranda swept by them without even acknowledging what they said. The rest of us followed.

"Hey… Shepard…" I whispered once the doors closed. "Did I miss the briefing where you explained this part of the plan?"

"No, because I didn't plan this," he whispered back.

_Really? _That was interesting. Not that he hadn't planned in advance: that was fairly common. Truth be told, most of our missions were spur of the moment and had little preparation. If we were lucky, we had a general objective and a vague idea of the location. Everything else Shepard made up on the spot.

What was interesting were the readings coming from my visor. See, it does more than make me look really, really sexy. I've put a lot of nifty features into it. One of them is a sensor package that can detect and interpret heart-rate fluctuations and changes in breathing patterns. It only works within ten metres and only on standard Council races, but you'd be surprised what it can tell me.

When Miranda was going all dominatrix outside Exava's, Shepard was surprised. Honestly, flat-out surprised. He let that surprise show on his face too, which was unexpected—he's usually better at hiding his emotions than that. And you should have seen the readings when Miranda called him her boyfriend. Definite surprise there. And shock. And fear. It's like he had absolutely no idea how to handle that scenario. Hence the uncharacteristically poor performance.

I think it's fair to say my plan to gather evidence on whatever relationship existed between Shepard and Miranda was turning up some very interesting findings. Either Shepard was taken off-guard by Miranda singlehandedly making their relationship public or their relationship was so new and tenuous that anything could rock the boat. Or maybe Miranda thought they were in a relationship but Shepard hadn't gotten the memo until now. I'd have to monitor them more carefully. And watch their backs. Shepard's, at least. He certainly looked too distracted and flustered to mind his surroundings.

Thankfully, he recovered before we entered the main room. Red neon lights everywhere. Smattering of black leather furniture. Quite a bit of metal too—also painted black. We paused to get our bearings. It wasn't every day you ended up in a place like Exava's, after all.

The staff were all asari, of course. Because here, more than anywhere else in the galaxy, was where they had all the power—and they definitely knew it. There was no shortage of men and women to order around, to abuse and mistreat and humiliate. People from every so-called lesser race, who were willing to throw their credits and dignity away to indulge their pathetic little fantasies.

And there were definitely a lot of them, filling the air with their cries and screams. I saw a batarian being whipped raw by one asari, his blood splashing against the wall in a lurid backdrop. Several humans were stuck in cages that were dangling from the ceiling, shaking partly in time to the music, partly from the electricity that intermittently ran through the bars. A turian was jerking spasmatically, as needles—no doubt coated with some kind of mild poison—were jabbed into his body one at a time. Next to him, a pair of volus sat there while another asari used her omni-tool to wreak havoc with their pressure suits. And a vorcha was screaming as yet another asari applied a plasma torch to his body.

You wanna know the best part? According to my visor, every single one of them was having the time of their lives. And people say _I _need my head examined. Which I probably do, but at least I'm not the only one. Misery, company, you know the saying.

"So… now what?" I wanted to know. "Wander around the room and talk to random strangers?"

"Or look for the really obvious bloke just standing alone and doin' his best impression of Avina?" Zaeed suggested.

"Actually, I really did schedule an appointment with Mistress Sin," Miranda said. "All we have to do is wait for her to find us."

"That… does explain a lot," I admitted.

Miranda glared at me. "I happen to know her."

And that only confirmed it. Knowing about this place wasn't that difficult, nor was finding it. Getting through the front door just meant paying an exorbitant entry fee. But actually landing an appointment with one of the Mistresses? On such short notice—it had only been twenty or twenty-five minutes since I briefed the team? That suggested a past relationship of some sort. "Still explains a lot," was all I said.

"All right," she conceded, much to my surprise. "I'll give you that. But it's not what you think."

"It rarely is."

The glare was back. I should clarify: I meant a professional Cerberus relationship. Though with Miranda's outfit, who knows? "I'll explain later, when we're in a more secluded location," she said.

"And when Shepard is around," I added, having just realized something. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Doin' what he does best," Zaeed said. "Look."

We did. He was busy talking to one of the staff. Asari, sporting an outfit that seemed to consist of wide leather straps. Either that or there were lots of jagged holes in the leather. Either way, there was a _lot _of skin showing. Spirits, I needed a cold shower. The three of us hurried over to join him. "...finished your first year?" he was asking.

"Yeah."

"What's it like?"

"Lots of fun, lots of partying, then lots of panicking and cramming when you realize that essays are due and exams are right around the corner."

"Sounds about right. Never did that myself, but I know people who did and that sounds—hey!" Shepard broke off upon seeing us. "This is Mistress Razor. She just finished her freshman year at the University of Thessia. Didn't really know what she wanted to do, so she enrolled in the General Arts program. Now she's thinking of majoring in archaeology."

Miranda and Zaeed probably didn't get it—well, maybe Miranda. Depending on how thorough her research was—but I did. Another asari interested in archaeology. What were the odds?

Zaeed scratched his head. "Uh, if you don't mind the goddamn cliché, what's a nice girl like you doin' in a place like this?"

"Tuition's expensive," Mistress Razor said. "Like, crazy expensive. I needed to earn some credits."

"On Omega?" I asked. "In Exava's?"

"My aunt lives here, so I get to crash with her for free. Salary's really good. And this way I don't have to do something like flip burgers, join Eclipse or spread my legs."

All good points.

"And if someone tries to get fresh with me, all I have to do is tell them where they work and what I do. That's usually enough to discourage them."

"And if it doesn't?" Shepard asked.

In response, Mistress Razor raised an arm. A thin whip of blue biotic energy crackled to life, extending out from the palm of her hand. We got the idea.

"Mistress Razor."

She stiffened and turned around. Another asari stood behind her. She was showing more skin than Mistress Razor. She also had a lot of spikes sticking out of her leather. "Uh, Mistress Sin! How may I serve you?"

"A pair of humans just walked in. They are loud. Rambunctious. Arrogant."

"And they need… discipline," Mistress Razor stated more than asked.

"Yes. Though they do not know it yet. Enlighten them."

"Yes, Mistress." We got a quick nod of farewell before Mistress Razor nervously scurried off. For the sake of her role as a dominatrix, I hoped she would get it together before she got to the humans. The other asari apparently felt the same way: "She's still rather new, though she has… potential. It's been a long time, Ms. Lawson."

"One year, nine months and three weeks by my count," Miranda replied. Naturally she'd remember that detail. I was more surprised that she didn't add the days, minutes and seconds.

Mistress Sin rolled her eyes. Apparently she found Miranda's compulsion for precision a little exasperating. "This way."

* * *

><p>We followed her out of the main room. Most of the people were too caught up in their pleasure and pain to notice us. As for the rest, half of them were too busy scurrying out of the way of a scary asari in skin-tight leather. The other half looked very envious.<p>

Again: can you believe people say that _I _need my head examined?

After a minute of stark, gloomy walls with custom lighting—at least, I hoped it was custom. If they were actual torches with open flames, then we had a major fire hazard… which meant squat. This is Omega, Garrus! Remember?—we ended up in a small room. Black walls and ceiling; white carpet, desk and leather chairs. Very minimalist. Not a chain or blade or handcuff to be seen. An office, then, not a dungeon or torture chamber. I couldn't help but notice that Shepard and Miranda automatically moved so Zaeed and I were between them. Why were they avoiding each other?

"We can talk freely in here," Mistress Sin said before I could give the matter more thought. "Good to see you again, Garrus."

The team whipped their heads around to stare at me. The look on Miranda's face clearly said that turnabout was fair play. Zaeed looked torn between envy and amusement. Shepard was just shocked, with a side helping of 'This explains a lot.'

"I was here looking for a gang-banger," I explained. "His ex used to work here, so I came here looking for information. It was strictly for business."

"He was very persuasive," Mistress Sin offered.

There were a lot of raised eyebrows. "I had to question the mistresses. And, while I don't want to brag, I have to say the ladies seemed to like me. Certainly I didn't hear any complaints."

"Because he tipped them."

Miranda was amused. Zaeed was disappointed. Shepard seemed relieved. And any hopes of establishing a legendary—what did humans call it? Mojo?—died a quick and sudden death.

"Three times their normal wage."

Now it was my turn to whip my head around. _"Three times?!" _I squawked at Mistress Sin. "You said it the going rate!"

"I lied."

"Do you know how much food costs? I went without lunch for a month because I was paying all that tip money. And now you're telling me that I overpaid?"

Mistress Sin gave me a smile that was both mocking and condescending. "We were very grateful."

"Okay, enough about me," I said loudly, trying to regain control of the conversation—and, perhaps, some of my dignity. "I'm not the only one you recognize. How do you and Ms. Lawson know each other?"

The smug smile quickly vanished from Mistress Sin's face, replaced by a sullen look of discontent. Meanwhile, Miranda was looking very smug, like the feline that swallowed the dairy product… or however the phrase goes. "Our dear mistress really _was _a very bad girl," the latter replied, ignoring the smouldering glare that was aimed in her direction. "It seems that, once upon a time, Mistress Sin wasn't a hard-working employee at Exava's. She was, in fact, part of a fairly profitable drug smuggling ring. One that thought they didn't have to pay Aria a cut of their illicit proceeds."

Ooh. Big mistake. Though you'd be surprised at the number of people who think they can get away with it. In my experience, they tend to fall in one of three groups.

Some think they're too small-time to be worth Aria's notice. They might be onto something—to a point. If you don't cause too much trouble and don't earn a lot of credits, Aria won't bother hounding you. Chances are she's already profiting from your presence—you do need to pay for food and rent, after all, and she already gets her cut from the vendors and landlords. Though she has been known to make an exception from time to time…

Others feel they're already paying enough to other parties like the Blue Suns and can't afford to pay any more. Again, it depends on the situation. Sometimes there's an unspoken arrangement in which the group running the protection racket is collecting for Aria as well as for themselves. In those cases, Aria won't send any more goons after you. There are people, however, who owe multiple parties due to their own choices, mistakes and sheer bad luck. Sucks to be them.

And then there are the men and women who think they're actually strong enough to screw with the Pirate Queen of Omega. If you're in that group… well, Aria takes an especial pleasure in teaching you the error of your ways. Walk down the streets and alleys of Omega and you'll probably find one or two bets going on who will be Aria's next example. My credits are on the Talons. Small group, mostly turians, involved in the usual criminal activities—though they were organized enough to have a nice side business running their own ports on Omega and charging ridiculous fees for ships who wanted to dock without dealing with Aria or her organization.

To my knowledge, the only person who hadn't paid Aria anything for conducting business on Omega and lived to get away with it was Shepard. There were a number of reasons that I could think of. First, he didn't stay on Omega very long. Second, he had the firepower, combat experience and body count to make anyone think twice about messing with him.

Third and most importantly, because Aria had dropped enough hints to suggest that Shepard was operating with her tacit approval. Think I'm wrong? Look at Afterlife. There's always a lineup and people always have to pay a cover charge just to get through the door, yet Shepard routinely skipped the line and entered the club without paying a single credit. Most people have to make a name for themselves or do a lot of schmoozing before they have a chance of seeing one of Aria's lieutenants, but Shepard got an invite to speak with her minutes after he set foot on Omega—an invite he promptly ignored in favour of satisfying his wanderlust. Not to mention that he could drop by and visit Aria in person any time he wanted, without needing to set up any appointment. Then there's the fact that she asked him to help out the krogan who used to run Omega, the one she derisively called Patriarch. And the fact that he gave him the location of an Eclipse cache that was up for grabs, though heavily guarded by three spirits-damned YMIR mechs. Do you think _any _of that's a coincidence?

But I digress. The point is that whoever Mistress Sin was or used to be, she had apparently made the mistake of breaking Omega's One Rule. And Miranda had somehow found out, a fact she had apparently used to arrange a private meeting on very short notice. Either they had a cozy arrangement or Miranda was using this information to blackmail her, probably with the threat of revealing her identity and location to Aria or one of her underlings. I was guessing the latter. Call it a hunch.

"You're lucky you survived," I offered.

"You call that lucky?" Mistress Sin snorted. "All I did was see which way the wind was blowing and have the brains to get out before Aria dropped the hammer."

For once, I understood the human colloquialisms she used. Both of them. Go me.

"We're lucky that you might be able to help us," Shepard said. "There's a human who visits Exava's on occasion. He's in trouble and we're trying to find him."

I pulled up his image on my omni-tool and showed it to Mistress Sin. "Do you recognize him or know where he is?"

"Not really," Mistress Sin admitted after a pause. "Mind you, most humans kinda look alike. Though there are a few exceptions." That last comment was aimed squarely at Miranda.

"Do you have some vid-cams set up here?" Shepard asked.

"Of course," came the reply, somewhat grudgingly.

"Can your security VI run a facial-recognition search through your security logs?"

"I suppose," Mistress Sin relented.

"Look at it this way," I offered, as Shepard sent the image file over, "the sooner you do this, the sooner we'll get out of here."

All I got was a muttered curse that didn't quite translate, but Mistress Sin complied. The search didn't take too long."We have… several hits," Mistress Sin reported after a few minutes. "I guess he does come here."

"When was the last time?" I asked.

"Two days ago," she replied. "Looks like he came here, had a couple drinks and left."

"Can we see?"

In response to Shepard's question, Mistress Sin typed in a command on her console. A vid-screen, that had previously blended into the wall, came to life. We watched as Cooper's cousin came into Exava's. We watched as he stared at the various sadomasochistic pleasures around him. We watched as he ordered a total of three drinks, chatting with whoever was sitting next to him. We watched him finish his drinks, pay his tab and leave.

I watched the woman on his right. Something about her looked familiar. Just needed her to turn around so I could get a better look at her shoulder. As if the spirits were listening, she obliged a few seconds later.

Perfect.

While I had gotten the clue—or clues—I needed, I couldn't just leave. Not if I didn't want to raise any suspicions. And I couldn't very well tell the team that we got what we needed, right in front of a resentful asari who had only cooperated with us under duress. So I kept quiet and waited while we perused the rest of the security footage, trying to be patient. Patience was a virtue, humans liked to say.

Waiting was something I was used to. As a sniper, you have to wait for the right confluence of factors—the ambient breeze to blow in the right direction, a clear line of sight to your target, said target either stationary or moving in a predictable manner. As a cop, I also had to wait, though those circumstances seemed to be more… aggravating. Waiting for backup to arrive when the crime was occurring right now. Waiting for the paperwork to be filed so we could obtain some warrant. Waiting for the lab results that always seemed to take forever. Waiting to get the intel we needed to move a case to the next step.

On some level, I knew waiting was necessary. Waiting to get the right forms filled out, waiting for authorization, waiting for all the evidence to be gathered and organized before going in for the arrest. Father tried to drill that into me all the time. 'Do things right, or don't do them at all,' he preached. I knew he was right on some level. I could admit that now. But when the letter of the law was more important than the spirit, when paperwork was prioritized over results, when bureaucracy was championed over justice… well, it's hard to remember those things.

Another reason why it was so rewarding working with Shepard, and why I was so relieved to be working with him again. He seemed to know when to let things slide and when to hold the line. When to toe the administrative line and when to 'streamline' certain things. I wish I had that sense of balance. But I didn't. All I knew was that it was easier to wait when Shepard was around.

Eventually, we finished going through the footage. I made some bullshit suggestion of checking out some other establishments with similar fetishes, for want of anything better to do. The team agreed, we said our goodbyes to Mistress Sin—whose glare told us very clearly that we shouldn't let the door hit our ass on the way out—and left Exava's.

"So where are we going?" Shepard asked after a few minutes.

"I recognized the woman Cooper's cousin was talking to," I replied. "Well, not her exactly, but the group she belongs to."

It was Zaeed's turn to ask. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Her tattoos. Left shoulder. One of them is the logo for the Tylers."

"Profile. Now." That was Miranda.

"Group of humans," I explained. "They claim to be a family band, but DNA evidence suggests otherwise. They also claim to be the next big hit in popular music. They're not. At best, they were a one-hit wonder. They relocated to the Terminus Systems to avoid criminal charges."

"On what grounds?" Shepard wanted to know. "Poor taste? Plagiarism? And why haven't I heard of them?"

"Turned out they were intermediaries for, well, anyone who wanted to trade secrets with anyone else. Spent more time brokering deals with traitors and turncoats than writing songs or taking voice lessons. Made a lot of enemies, so they left Citadel space. Guess it was only a matter of time until they showed up here. And Shepard: you've never heard of them because you don't listen to any music that isn't at least a hundred years old."

Shepard opened his mouth. Paused. Apparently found himself at a loss for words. Closed his mouth again.

"Anyway, they must be up to their old tricks again if they're talking to Cooper's cousin. If they could get their hands on that list of undercover agents, the potential payday could be huge."

"You mentioned tattoos," Miranda said. "Plural. Then you explained the significance of one of them. What about the rest?"

"Most I didn't get," I admitted. "Except one: it's a temporary omni-tattoo given to customers who visited Notan. It's a new club that opened up last year."

"Notan," Miranda repeated. "As in the comparison and contrast of light and dark, how each represents what the other is not and how they play off each other when placed together?"

"Yes," I said without missing a beat. I actually had no idea if that was true or not. If she was right, and I had a feeling that her desire to showcase her exhaustive knowledge would outweigh any motivation to mislead me on such a trivial subject, then I had finally learned what the damn word meant. I'd spent a few days trying to look up the word and find out if it was real or not, only to be thwarted by some very slow and painfully intermittent extranet access. Then I got distracted with scaring the crap out of criminal scum.

But they didn't need to know that.

* * *

><p>The predominant colours of Notan are black and white. The façade. The interior. The furniture. The staff uniforms. Even the food and drinks. Makes sense, given what Miranda had just told me about the origin and meaning of the word. Though I do think they took the whole theme a bit literally.<p>

When you go to Notan, you know exactly what you're in for. You will line up to get in. You will pay the cover charge, no matter how outrageous. You will eat and drink whatever's on the menu—which changes from day to day according to the mercurial whims of the staff and whatever was available. You will enjoy whatever music is blaring through the speakers. Special requests not entertained. Contrary to popular opinion, you cannot solicit sexual favours from the staff. If you want sex, you can go next door.

You'd think that kind of thing would piss a lot of people off. And considering how many people walk around armed to the teeth, and the kinds of weapons that you can openly carry here, that would be a serious problem. You'd think someone would've burned it to the ground by now, just on general principle. Except… it wasn't. It was, in fact, extremely popular. Everyone who knew about it wanted to go there, even if it was just once. Maybe it was the idea of a club that was so obsessed with rules running in a place where there _were _no rules. Maybe people thought that if they wouldn't be crazy enough to insist on all these rules if there wasn't something good about the club.

Whatever the reason, it was extremely popular. Which was why the lack of a lineup made my gizzard twist into a knot.

I wasn't the only one who was concerned. "Is it just me," Shepard voiced out loud, "or is it awfully quiet and empty here?"

"Usually more people here buying something," Zaeed agreed. "Drinks. Drugs. Sex."

"Either something serious occurred or everyone's cleared out in anticipation of an ambush," Miranda chimed in.

Oh goody. We were all in agreement. So now what? Shepard had come to a decision, judging by the look on his face. The rest of us were a little more undecided. "Zaeed, why don't you stay behind and watch our backs?" I suggested. "Give us the heads-up if anyone comes by hoping to ambush us."

"Right," Zaeed nodded. He grabbed his assault rifle and melted away into the shadows. Miranda pulled out her submachine gun and moved in to investigate. Shepard and I both grabbed our sniper rifles before joining her, because they made us feel so manly.

It wasn't until we were within a few metres of the door that our suspicions were confirmed. It's not unheard of to see dried blood on Omega. There's a lot of violence, several deaths on a daily basis and the effectiveness of the janitorial staff is iffy at best. You learn to notice it, deal with it and move on. Sometimes it gets to the point where you only subconsciously register its presence and automatically step around it. Or subconsciously register its presence and belatedly realize later that that was why you put the extra effort into pummelling some scumbags into a bleeding, crying and possibly dead pulp.

Fresh blood is another story. Particularly the stream of blood trickling out the door.

I took a deep breath, all the while noticing that I wasn't the only one, hit the door controls and strode in.

The smell hit us first. It was like walking into a wall of freshly spilled blood, guts and bodily fluids. Shepard looked a little queasy, probably because he hadn't experienced anything quite so… messy. Miranda's face became white as a sheet, which was impressive considering how pale she was to begin with, and threw a hand up in front of her mouth. No doubt the input from her genetically enhanced senses had temporarily overwhelmed her usual self-discipline. She managed to keep the contents of her stomach down. Shepard made a jerky, twitchy motion towards her, like he was going to check on her and then changed his mind halfway through. Miranda looked annoyed, probably because she had shown some outward sign of weakness. But I also sensed some ire directed at… Shepard. Why? Was she annoyed that he had wanted to help? Annoyed that he didn't help?

Questions. So many questions. Some more pressing than others, like how Notan had turned into Omega's latest slaughter fest.

Dead bodies were strewn everywhere. Some of them belonged to Notan's staff. Some were wearing nondescript outfits that could be found anywhere. There were a number of humans in civvie garb. I saw a number of Eclipse hardsuits as well. The 'mercs' appeared to be all asari and salarian, which made me suspect that they were actually undercover huntresses and STG units. I say 'appeared to be' as I couldn't be one hundred percent certain. Positive ID is challenging when the victims have their heads blown off. Or the majority of their chest cavity gaping wide open. Or suffering from dismemberment or evisceration. Red and purple blood covered the furniture and walls, adding some garish colour to the normally monochromatic décor. The carpet was soaked with blood as well, judging by the squishy noises that squeaked out every time one of us took a step.

The gory spectacle that lay before us was magnified by the absolute silence that filled the club. Almost as if the club itself was in shock at the events that had transpired here. Of course, the cop in me noted that that was due more to the fact that most of the speakers had been shot to pieces.

"You take me to the nicest places," Miranda said sarcastically, breaking the quiet.

"I'm sorry," Shepard said, his voice on edge.

"You should be."

Actually, I think Miranda's comment was directed more at me, but the fact Shepard felt the need to respond was interesting. Not to mention the underlying tension. The timing sucked, of course. But then, this was Shepard we were talking about. The one person who the spirits seemed to hate more than me.

Of course, most people in a relationship—and I was seriously considering the possibility that Shepard and Miranda were in a relationship at this point—start with the lovey-dovey nauseating sweetness _before _getting into a fight. Again, this was _Shepard _we were talking about.

"Well, look on the bright side," I said, hoping to defuse the tension. "It's been a while since we last bumped into any mercs."

"Eleven days," Miranda corrected.

"Whatever," I dismissed.

"Still, it's good to know that mercs can come to a sticky and messy end without my help," Shepard brightened up.

"Or mine," I added. Because I couldn't let him have all the credit. I hadn't spent the last two years on Omega twiddling my talons, thank you very much.

"Point taken," Shepard allowed. "Now what?"

"Now we search the bodies for clues," I replied.

Miranda flinched. "You can't be serious."

"We only had one lead," I pointed out. "It led us here. Somewhere in the midst of all this blood and guts and gore, there's a clue that'll give us something new to go on. Unless you can recreate the Lazarus Cell and bring one of these guys back from the dead to interrogate."

"Believe it or not, Garrus, I do realize that. But sifting for clues would mean… _touching… _them." She shuddered in revulsion.

"That's what gloves are for," Shepard chirped.

Miranda let out a sound of disgust. "I'm going to need two showers when this is over."

I didn't need my visor's sensors to see Shepard gulp.

Shepard's issues aside, I couldn't really blame Miranda for her reluctance. Evidence gathering was always my least favourite job in C-Sec. At best, it was dull, boring drudgery. Most of the time, though, it was sticky, smelly and messy. Though this particular scene put most of my past encounters to shame. I think I had a new candidate for my Top 100 Gross-Out Scenes Guaranteed to Give Me Nightmares. Maybe even Top 50.

After a half hour of searching and digging, two things became clear. First, we wouldn't get another clue here. We could get credits. Weapons that we already had. Thermal clips that we couldn't swipe because we were already chock-full of clips. But no clues.

Second, I saw three groups here. The salarian STG units pretending to be Eclipse, asari huntresses pretending to be Eclipse, and the Tylerspretending to be something other than a one-hit, has-been band. All wiped out. Judging from the position of the bodies and the spatter of blood and bodily fluids, most of the slaughter had been done by a fourth party.

"Well, this is interesting."

I jerked my head up, along with Shepard and Miranda. We had company.

An asari had entered the room without any of us noticing. Including Zaeed, who was currently squawking in my ear about who were we talking to and where the hell did she come from? Or Miranda, whose genetically enhanced hearing should've picked up on something. Though to be fair, we had been engrossed in some distasteful and ultimately fruitless investigation.

But back to the asari. She held herself with a certain confidence and familiarity. Like it wasn't her first time on Omega. I didn't see anyone with her, unless they were hiding somewhere. If she had come alone, she was either very brave or incredibly stupid. She glanced casually around the club, as if she wasn't a stranger to this amount of violence. Maybe she wasn't.

She looked familiar too. Where had I seen her?

"Don't tell me," she grinned. "Let me guess: this isn't what it looks like."

Right. Walking in on three people, hands covered in blood, sifting through bodies. Natural conclusion: murderers and looters, caught in the act. Mind you, all of us had taken several lives. And one of us had been a shameless kleptomaniac even before he died.

"Actually it isn't," I replied. "We're looking for a friend."

"And you thought he might have come here?"

"We did," I said, getting to my feet. Then I paused, took a few steps and crouched down again. "At the very least, the woman he was talking to came here," I added, after carefully looking at another body. Martina Tyler, former eldest sister and head of the Tyler family/band/spy group. "But it seems we hit a dead end. Literally."

"Then perhaps I can help."

How convenient. "How?"

"I think the three of you could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with my employer," the asari replied.

"And that employer is…?" Shepard prompted.

"Aria. I believe you've met her before… Commander Shepard."

Shit.

This mission had just reached a whole new level of complicated. All our efforts to stay under the radar and avoid notice had been for naught. Because Aria T'Loak and her organization was onto us. They might've been from the very beginning.

Worse, this asari knew who we were. Well, they knew Shepard at least.

"I wouldn't want to trouble Aria," Shepard said. "It's not that big a deal. I'm just trying to find a friend of a friend on behalf of another friend. Aria knows I do that sort of thing all the time."

"True," the asari said. "But maybe Aria thinks that the sooner she helps you find this person, the better. Maybe she's concerned that the longer this drags out, the worse it will be for Omega—and her."

Put that way, she had a point. Besides, Aria did have a finger on the pulse of Omega. And it wouldn't be the first time she threw Shepard a bone. Maybe she could put us back on the right track.

Of course, she might have other motives in mind. Most people do.

* * *

><p>While the mysterious asari led us out of Notan and off to whatever spot Aria had supposedly chosen to meet us, I began running a medical scan. Maybe her DNA profile would help me figure out who the heck she was. The scan was still running by the time we'd reached our destination, but I learned one thing about her for sure: she <em>definitely <em>knew her way around Omega.

In the half hour we spent following her through the bowels of the station, she proved she knew which alleys were empty and which ones were packed full of ne'er-do-wells. Which streets were open and which ones were closed due to construction, crime or acts of Aria. Spirits, she led us through a few detours and shortcuts that _I _didn't even know exist.

After a while, I began to recognize a kiosk here, a shop there, and I realized the asari was taking us to Athame's Pride. You might not recognize the name, but you've probably been there before. Or somewhere very close to it. It was a typical nightclub that could easily be mistaken for just about any other nightclub in Citadel space. Visitors to Omega flocked there when they had been exhausted by the unrelenting danger and needed somewhere more subdued and familiar. Natives found it laughable in its pretensions, tame in comparison to the other thrills and sins available.

There was a lineup, of course, leading to the gold-leaf doors guarded by a pair of krogan bouncers. Everyone melted away at our approach. More evidence, if any was needed, that this asari was more than who she appeared to be at first glance.

Hoping Zaeed had managed to keep up with us, we walked through the doors and stepped into a huge ballroom. A large, multifaceted silver ball rotated and sparkled overhead, reflecting a million different colours. Hundreds of customers, dressed in bright and gaudy outfits, fluttered around the room like butterflies, shouting and laughing, dancing like the night would never end. At the moment, they were bouncing in rhythm to the music, as a woman sang about girls just wanting to have fun.

Naturally, Shepard recognized the song.

The asari led us across the room, weaving in and out of the crowd with an ease borne of inherent grace and long practise, and through a door marked for staff only. The relief from the visual and auditory assault was palpable. We followed her through a maze of corridors and more rooms than I could count. I wasn't surprised when she led us into yet another room, empty aside from a few barrels and crates.

I shouldn't have been surprised when the asari reached out and tapped a cleverly-concealed wall control. Kinetic barriers blazed to life, trapping Shepard, Miranda and I in a cube of brilliant blue light.

"Aria apologizes for the inconvenience," the asari said from the other side of the barrier, "but she's very interested in Mr. Wexler."

"Who?" I frowned.

"Joseph Wexler. The man you've been looking for."

"Right."

The asari rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you don't even know his name."

I didn't, actually. Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

"I said I was looking for a friend," Shepard said, coming to my defence.

"No, you didn't," Miranda interrupted.

"Yes, I did."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No, you said you were looking for a friend of a friend on behalf of another friend," Miranda corrected.

"Fine," Shepard gave up. "The point is, I never said I knew his name."

"What exactly is Aria's interest in Mr. Wexler," I asked, curious to see what she knew.

"The salarians were interested enough in him to send a STG unit all the way out here. The asari were interested in why the salarians were interested. Some two-bit freelancer group who hadn't sold any secrets worth a damn in years were also interested in him. And then Commander Shepard became interested in him too. Four different players, all playing spy games on Omega. Without even asking Aria for permission. Seems rather rude, don't you think?"

"So now Aria's going to go hunting and she doesn't want any competition," I said. "Is that why she had the salarians, the asari and the Tylers killed?"

"They were in the way."

Not exactly a yes, but the inference was certainly there. "And now she's going to make it four for four?"

"Not exactly," she replied, shaking her head. "Aria thinks you might come in handy someday, so she wants you alive. But we will keep you here, out of the way, until she gets what she wants. Speaking of which, it's time for me to go. Pleasure to meet you all. Ta, ta!"

The asari sauntered out of the room with a casual wave and a cheery smile. The door closed behind her.

And we were left alone. Trapped like rats.


	4. Shock and Awe

**Chapter 4: Shock and Awe**

"I got it!" I cried out.

"You got what?" Miranda asked.

"And is it contagious?" Shepard wanted to know.

Ever since we'd been stuck in the bowels of Athame's Pride, we'd been engaged in various activities. I'd been trying to remember the name of the asari that trapped us here. Miranda had been scanning the kinetic barriers.

Shepard, naturally, had been digging through every barrel and crate looking for loot.

"That asari! I figured out who she is!"

"And?" Shepard made a 'go on' motion with his hand.

"Her name's Liselle. I met her just before I left the Citadel for Omega. Originally, I was on a case for a client who was looking for her missing daughter. I wound up discovering that she and Liselle were the latest victims by a salarian who was using asari abductees as a component in some supercomputer."

"Another salarian mad scientist?" Shepard marvelled.

"Yeah. What're the odds, right?"

"So you recognize her because you rescued her two years ago?" Miranda summarized.

"That and the fact that someone from Omega hired a freelancer to find her and bring her back… or, if she was dead, find out who abducted and killed her… and do various nasty things with their insides."

"Interesting," Shepard muttered. "First, she warrants being rescued after being abducted. Then she's chosen to singlehandedly intercept us and lead us into a trap. Liselle must be pretty high in Aria's organization."

"That's what I thought," I nodded.

"And now Aria's looking for this Wexler as well," Miranda frowned. "At least she doesn't know what he has."

"Or if she does, either she hasn't told Liselle or she told her to keep her mouth shut," I added.

"Regardless, we gotta get out of here," Shepard said, turning to Miranda. "Any luck?"

"Considering I was forced to do all the work because you were indulging your desire to steal everything that wasn't nailed down and Garrus was taking a trip down memory lane?"

"Hey! I could've found something useful! Or important!"

"Did you?"

…

"Well?"

"No." Shepard sounded like the guy who got caught trying to steal something from the cookie jar.

"There. You see?"

"Fine. You win. Happy?"

"Quite."

"Yeah for you. Now: what did you find?"

"That the only way to get out is to take down the barriers," Miranda replied. "Which means either finding and disabling the power source or turning off the controls."

"Both of which are impossible from this side of the barriers," Shepard frowned.

"Good thing we know someone who's on the other side," I replied. "Zaeed? You there?"

"_Stop me if you heard this joke before: a turian psycho, a hot babe and a guy with a death wish walks into a bar…"_

"Very funny," Shepard said sourly.

"Says the guy who wasn't called a psycho," I reminded him.

"I'm waiting for the punch line about the bounty hunter finding his teammates," Miranda put in.

"_Working on it. Security seems a tad much for a nightclub."_

"Sounds like Aria." I quickly filled Zaeed in on what Liselle had told us.

"_That'd do it," _he agreed. _"Mind you, mixing two security forces together never works perfectly. Different procedures. Egos. There's always a gap or two somewhere. Gimme a sec."_

Zaeed fell silent while he did his recon. "Hey, before Liselle interrupted us, did anyone find anything back at Notan?" Shepard asked to break the silence.

"Aside from dead huntresses, STG operators, Tyler spies and Notan staff?" I shook my head. "No."

"I wish I'd found something," Miranda groused. "Anything to justify sullying my gloves."

"You've been in how many fights and combat situations?" Shepard asked, an amused look on his face.

"Far too many, since I was forced to wake you up," came the reply.

"And yet…"

Miranda didn't need Shepard to finish off that sentence. "I'm no stranger to seeing dead bodies," she said. "Or killing. But I don't normally eviscerate my enemies or rip them to pieces. I certainly don't dig through their bodies afterwards."

"That's true," Shepard admitted.

"I leave looting the dead to you."

"Hey!"

At least Shepard and Miranda were talking again. Previously, when we were trying to follow Wexler there was a certain tension between the two. A failure to communicate, or a certain prickliness and tension that had them overreacting to perceived insults or criticisms. Perhaps it was the shared danger they were in that caused them to agree to a ceasefire. Whatever it was, I wasn't complaining. It was nice to see them cooperating again.

"_Okay, I got some good news and some bad news," _Zaeed reported at last. I could barely hear him, as he was making an effort to keep his voice down.

"Go on," I prompted.

"_Bad news first: still lots of guards. Found a door that's only got one guard, but there are plenty of other guards within earshot. They'll hear me if I come in guns blazing, and that'll mean a lotta company when we're tryin' to get out."_

"Okay," I said. "And the good news is…?"

"_Guard's female."_

I looked at Shepard and Miranda. "Yeah?" I tried. "So?"

"_Time to break out the ol' Massani charm. I'm gonna seduce my way past her."_

…

…

"Did he just say…?" I trailed off.

Shepard and Miranda exchanged looks of dread. "Uh oh," they said in unison.

"So I wasn't imagining it?" I groaned.

"He wants to… seduce… the guard," Miranda confirmed.

"Zaeed, that doesn't sound like…. I don't think that plan holds a very high chance of success," Shepard said. "Are there any other options? Don't you have enough thermal clips? Or inferno grenades?"

Sadly, Miranda was a little less diplomatic. "Because your skill set lacks the necessary social graces or finesse to handle anything resembling seduction."

"What she means is there's something to be said for more aggressive tactics," I tried. "I believe you humans once called it… um… shock and awe?" I looked over at Shepard, who confirmed that I had gotten it right. Or at least, I hadn't horrifically mangled it beyond recognition.

"_Like I said, bullets or grenades'll alert the other guards," _Zaeed whispered._ "Besides, this is the kinda gal I know how to charm."_

"Oh God," Shepard practically whimpered. "He's gonna charm her!"

Miranda closed her eyes in dismay.

"Zaeed, don't do it!" I pleaded. "Shock and awe's the way to do it. Do you hear me? Shock and awe! SHOCK AND AWE!"

"_Hey there. How're you doin'?"_

I held my breath.

"_Lovely weapon you got there. M-15 Vindicator, isn't it?"_

Shepard dropped his head and groaned. Miranda's eyes popped open again, positively bulging as her face silently expressed her horror.

"_Must get awfully lonely down here. All alone. Ain't no one else here to chat with."_

There was a pause.

"_Yeah," _the guard finally admitted, her voice relayed over the comm channel. _"I've been doing this shift all week and you're the first guy I've seen."_

"_Damn," _Zaeed marvelled. _"No kiddin'. A whole goddamn week?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Is it always this cold? Someone didn't pay Aria, I guess."_

"_I guess."_

"_Aw, what am I talkin' about? Look at you. You can handle it, right? You're strong. Tough. Not like one of them skinny chicks." _

Miranda dropped her head. Shepard moaned again. I looked at them, wondering what I missed. Things seemed to be going pretty well, from what I could tell. Showed interest in her and her work, was impressed with what she had to put up with, called her strong and tough and…

…

…not skinny. Which could mean strong and muscular.

Or it could mean fat.

…

…

Shit. Three guesses how she'd interpret it and, with my luck, the first two wouldn't count.

The next few minutes were filled with the rapid barking of assault rifle fire, interspersed with shouts of alarm and several screams. Then we heard someone pounding on the door.

"Fire in the hole!" Zaeed yelled out before the entire door exploded in flames. He strode through the smoke, tongues of fire licking at his boots.

"Very charming," I told him.

"I'm swept off my feet," Miranda deadpanned.

"Should I take notes?" Shepard asked innocently.

Zaeed scowled at the three of us. "Hey! I'm saving the lot of you. So shut up already!"

* * *

><p>"What's the plan?" Zaeed wanted to know after disabling the barriers. Fair question, but not exactly the best time.<p>

"Now we try to sneak out," I tried. "If anyone confronts us, act surprised, bewildered and clueless."

"And if that doesn't work?" Shepard asked, his voice expressing a certain skepticism towards my initial plan.

"We follow Zaeed's lead," I replied.

"Um…" Shepard looked… apprehensive, to say the least.

"Minus the seduction," I added.

"Thank God," Shepard sighed in relief.

"Agreed," Miranda muttered.

"Hey!" Zaeed was apparently still a little sensitive about his lack of skills in that area.

Any thoughts of putting the moves on anyone went out the airlock when we ran into six guards. Mix of batarians and humans. As they opened fire, three more ran in.

"So… shock and awe?" Shepard asked.

"Shock and awe," I confirmed.

Shepard quickly highlighted targets on our HUDs and we got to work. Miranda and I launched our EMPs, aiming them to hit more than one target. I got two. Miranda got three. Grr. Not that we were keeping score or anything. I mean, there wasn't any official tally or tracking and I could have gotten three if I really wanted to but chose not to so I could raise my assault rifle and start shooting and Miranda wouldn't have hit three if that guard hadn't moved a bit to the left like he did and… well… huh. Guess we were keeping score. At least, I was.

Anyway, Shepard followed up by lighting up the guards Miranda had attacked. Ever since he came back from the dead, I'd noticed he really, _really_ favoured that tactic. Zap their shields—set them on fire. Strip down their barriers—set them on fire. Melt their armour off—which often meant hitting them with fire—then hit them with more fire. And for the poor saps who didn't have any extra protection? Go straight to setting them on fire. Really makes a turian worry about what he'd do if he didn't have mercs or husks or Collectors around on a seemingly daily basis to satisfy his pyromania. Note to self: consider investing in grenades packed with flame retardant. Or maybe a program that would disable the protocols or mechanisms involved in generating those fireballs of plasma. Or maybe just hit him with an EMP.

I winced as a bullet ricocheted off my shields. Maybe I should worry less about what might happen in the future and worry more about the firefight I was currently stuck in.

Right. Four guards with shields. Two guards without shields. Three guards without shields, currently trying the slap-yourself-silly-until-you-stop-burning tactic. "Zaeed, prime an inferno grenade," I ordered, quickly loading a concussive round into my assault rifle. Confident that he'd obey, I lifted my weapon up and fired. One of the three burning guards took the round squarely in the gut and flew back, knocking over the two guards who had their shields drained. "Now!" I yelled.

Zaeed hurled his inferno grenade at the pile of struggling guards, setting them all on fire before they could get away from each other. While the flames roared up into the sky—well, towards the ceiling, but close enough—I targeted one of the guards who had finally started to win the battle over the hot, hot plasma. Not for the first time, I found myself really, really loving the Mattock. Yeah, it couldn't exactly hold a lot of shots per thermal clip. True, its rate of fire left something to be desired—which was why you shouldn't carry it into battle against a horde of husks without a backup weapon. But the sheer stopping power and accuracy was undeniable. Every shot, heralded by a dull solid thud, landed exactly where I wanted and sent the poor schmuck staggering back. In this case, all it took was four bullets and the guard went down. Another eight or nine dropped another guard.

Meanwhile, Shepard had chosen to launch another fireball at the guards Zaeed and I had targeted earlier. Which left us with four guards. Two with shields, two without—thanks to Miranda's EMP. One of the latter was on the comm, practically begging for reinforcements. At least, he was begging up until a bullet from Shepard's sniper rifle dug a jagged little hole through his forehead and out the other side.

Not to be outdone, I switched to my sniper rifle and fired a shot. The target's head exploded like a water balloon, albeit one filled with blood and chunks of bone and bits of grey matter. The guard next to him flinched so violently that he temporarily broke cover. Not long, but enough for Miranda and Zaeed to drain his shields with a barrage of bullets. After that, it was a toss-up as to how Shepard would choose to finish him off. I was too busy sending the last guard into the wall, courtesy of another concussive round. The impact killed him instantly, judging by the unnatural angle of his neck as he slumped to the ground.

I lowered my rifle in time to see 'Shepard's' guard collapse, his body wreathed in flames—seriously, what is _with _him and fire? Do we need to have a talk or something?

Shepard conveniently found a way to avoid any conversation we might have had. "Reload and gather any spare ammo you need." He followed his own order by ejecting spent thermal clips from his weapons and picking new ones up off the ground. "I'll scout ahead."

He was back within a minute. "Six more guards," he reported. "Tightly packed, moving towards an intersection up ahead. If we hurry, we can get set up."

We followed him as he explained his plan. I couldn't find any problems with it. Truth be told, I probably would have done something similar. As we approached the intersection, Shepard and I slowed down and pulled out our sniper rifles while Miranda and Zaeed went ahead. They paused just long enough to make sure that the guards didn't see them before crossing over to the other side of the intersection. Everyone found somewhere to hide. Then it was just a matter of waiting.

They arrived a few minutes later, their bio-signs showing up on our HUDs as they approached the intersection. "Three," Shepard whispered.

The guards appeared, turning left towards us.

"Two."

They took a few steps forward.

"One."

Shepard and I popped up, aimed and fired a single shot while Miranda launched an EMP. Sure enough, they were so close together that the pulse fried all of their shields, which made it very easy for Shepard and I to land kill shots. The remaining four screeched to a halt, bumping into each other as the front pair tried to backpedal away from their now-headless compatriots while the rear pair was still under the impression that they were moving forward. Before they could sort things out, Zaeed's inferno grenade exploded in their midst. There was a lot of screaming before we put them out of their misery.

I looked around to get my bearings. "If I remember correctly, the main room of the club would be… that way." I pointed a talon in the direction that the guards just came from. "If we continued in that direction, we'd walk out the front door… which faced that dinky kiosk that sold bootleg copies of porn vids."

"And you know this how?" Miranda queried, raising an eyebrow.

"It's part of a chain that has kiosks all over Omega."

Now it was Shepard's turn to raise an eyebrow. "There are business chains specializing in porn vids?"

"Oh yeah," Zaeed assured him. "Only a small one for the local market, but they get stuff in from all over the galaxy. Quality's pretty damn good. Better than some of the bigger chains."

We all looked at him.

"One of my last bodyguard gigs. Spent a couple weeks guarding the CEO from his main competitor, who wanted to off him. Easy money. Would've been more of a challenge if the other guy hired real mercs."

Who knew porn could be so cutthroat. "Anyway," I said, trying to bring the conversation back on point, "All that means that there's a side entrance straight ahead."

"Sounds about right," Zaeed agreed. "That's the one I came in through."

"Think it'll be heavily guarded?" Shepard asked.

Zaeed thought about it. "Well I took out a lotta guys—and gals—on the way in. And we just took out another dozen or so. Can't be many left."

"And if there are, I'm sure we can handle them," I said. "I say we keep going and take our chances. Maybe we'll get lucky."

We didn't face any more guards over the next few minutes. The only sounds came from our footsteps as we jogged down the corridors. For a moment, I thought the spirits were taking pity on us.

Then we turned around the corner. The door I recalled was about a hundred metres away.

Along with a pair of guards. A pair that made up for their atrocious aim with an overly developed set of trigger fingers.

"They do know we're armed, right?" Shepard muttered as we ducked behind some crates.

"One would hope they could see the various weapons we were holding," Miranda replied.

"And they do know that _we _outnumber _them _two to one?" Zaeed growled.

"Doesn't seem to matter," I shrugged. "We face those odds all the time."

"There's a difference between them and us," Miranda pointed out.

"True," I conceded.

"Shall we?" Shepard prompted.

"Let's put the sorry bastards outta their misery," Zaeed chuckled.

With that deep and insightful conversation out of the way, Miranda and I fried their shields. Shepard and Zaeed set them on fire and a few bullets finished them off.

* * *

><p>"What's the plan?" Zaeed asked when we emerged from Athame's Pride, repeating his earlier question.<p>

"We follow the bread crumbs," I replied.

I got a few blank looks.

"Oh come on," I protested. "I know I got that human phrase right."

"You did," Shepard nodded, "but even you have to admit that that explanation was more of a summary. What's the long version of the plan?"

"While Liselle was chatting with us, I slipped a program onto her omni-tool. The one we use to keep track each other's whereabouts when we're in the field."

"So we can track her," Miranda guessed. "But all we have are the sensors in our omni-tools or our hardsuits, which are limited to a fairly short range. We could boost the gain, but that would cause a massive flare that would be detectable by even the most unimaginative individuals. I suppose we could mask it, but that would reduce the range."

"You could use that," I allowed. "I was gonna use EDI and the Normandy's sensors."

Miranda paused, thought about it, then gave a smile of approval. Well, a slight smile. More of a lip-twitch, really. But I decided to count that as a win.

"That would work," Shepard agreed. "Even a passive scan from the Normandy's sensors would easily cover the whole station."

"And it would attract less attention," I added. "I'd considered using EDI to break into Omega's security feeds and run biometric scans to find Cooper's cousin Wexler."

"Why didn't you do that?" Zaeed asked.

"Because it would've meant fewer gun battles."

"God forbid," Zaeed said firmly.

"Besides, there are way too many vid-cams, mainframes and VIs on Omega," I continued. "Each tying to multiple parties, tapped and hacked by various enemies and competitors… trying to have EDI infiltrate them all without being detected seemed iffy at best."

"The probability of failure might not be as high as you'd think," Miranda said thoughtfully. "EDI is extremely advanced, after all, and was designed for electronic warfare. Mind you, it's currently shackled—and for good reason—which places certain limits on what it can do. I agree that your proposed plan has a higher chance of success."

"That's what I thought," I nodded. I didn't add that I didn't exactly trust EDI. It was an AI, after all. Let's face it: AIs don't exactly have a glowing reputation. For every friendly geth—and the only reason I was saying that was after meeting a geth sporting a souvenir of Shepard's—there was a hostile geth. And spirits-knows-how-many-Reapers. Point is: could I really trust an AI built and programmed by Cerberus? Shepard seemed willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but he always did like making it up as he went along. I didn't share his talent or optimism, so I had to be a bit more skeptical. Trusting EDI wasn't something I wanted to do unless I had no other choice. And right now, I didn't have any other plans.

"You're sure there was enough time to finish the installation?" Shepard wanted to know.

"If it is, EDI should be able to find out for us," I replied, opening a comm channel to the Normandy. "Garrus to Normandy. Anyone there?"

"_Hey there!" _Joker replied over the comm.. "_How's my favourite turian doing?"_

"Could be better," I allowed. "I need to you to scan the station for any signals operating on the squad location frequency."

"_Uh… okay… EDI, care to do the honours?"_

"_Scanning. I detect four signals clustered together: Shepard, Ms. Lawson, Mr. Vakarian and Mr. Massani. I also detect a fifth signal, designated… 'unknown asari'."_

"You can rename that fifth signal 'Liselle,' EDI," I said. "We need to follow her. Where is she?"

"_Liselle is currently located in the Kima District. Accessing sensor logs. Garrus: according to my findings, Liselle's coordinates correspond with the base you were residing in when Shepard came to recruit you."_

Correction: the base where my squad had indulged in glorious dreams and fantasies of ridding Omega of all her crime and corruption. The base I retreated to when that same squad was slaughtered to a man. The base where I had made what I thought would be my last stand before Shepard arrived to rescue me.

The base where I had almost died.

"Don't suppose you could see if the bitch has any company," Zaeed grunted.

"_That would require a more active scan that Omega's sensor array would detect, leading to questions and objections that you would undoubtedly seek to avoid."_

"That's all right, EDI," I broke in. "Just keep tabs on her location and let us know if she goes anywhere. Garrus out." After closing the comm channel, I turned to the team. "I know a shortcut to my old base. There's a good chance that the sensors I set up there are still functioning. If Liselle is there, we can tap into the feeds and do some recon."

"Sounds like a plan," Shepard grinned. "After you."

We quickly shuffled off, with the team close on my heels, as I led them towards my old stomping grounds.

The base that I knew like the back of my hand.

* * *

><p>Humans have many sayings. One of them is that memory is the first thing to go as one grows older. My memory, while not perfect or infallible, remembered enough of the shortcut so that I didn't make a fool of myself. As we went along, I started remembering landmarks here and there that confirmed I was on the right path. Guess I still have it, no matter how many fuckups I've made.<p>

I only had to make one detour. Some couple had stumbled into the tunnel and thought it was as good a place as any to have some very energetic sex. Either that, or one of Omega's prostitutes couldn't find a decent spot to ply her trade and had to get creative. We gave them a wide berth, but Miranda was still traumatized, judging by the way she kept shuddering.

EDI never contacted us again, so I figured Liselle was still at my old base. Eventually, we arrived at the spot I had picked to do our recon. On the surface, it looked like an empty corridor with a lot of refuse and a burned-out transformer on the wall. But if you press the hidden latches on the side of the transformer, swing it aside and open the hidden panel hiding behind, you'd find a computer console.

Reaching out, I hit a string of keys. The console immediately lit up. "Excellent," I murmured. "We still have power. Now let's see what we have here…"

I started at the bridge leading to the front of the base. "Four guards," I identified. Two on the ground floor and two on the upper floor."

"Right where we took down all those mercs," Shepard remembered, referring to the latter.

"Exactly." Next, I moved to the vid-cams monitoring the underground tunnels that the mercs had breached during their attack. "Two guards stationed outside the hole leading to the basement," I identified.

A quick scan showed the main room on the ground floor was empty, as were the surrounding corridors. I moved to the upper floor vid-cams. Confirmed the two guards watching the bridge were still there. "There you are," I said. "Liselle, two more guards and Mr. Wexler."

Shepard caught my eye. "Whaddya think, Garrus? Hit 'em front and back?"

"Exactly," I grinned. Turning to Miranda and Zaeed, I told them what I had in mind: "Shepard and I will take out the four guards at the front. Meanwhile, the two of you go underground—I'll show you where to go—and get the drop on the two guards in the basement. Then we'll meet up on the ground floor and head on up."

Miranda had one concern: "We've established that Liselle may have some importance in Aria's organization."

"We'll have to be careful there," I acknowledged. "Hopefully, we can get the drop on them and convince them to surrender. The odds are four-to-three in our favour, so hopefully none of them will get any ideas."

"Hopefully they won't get any backup," Zaeed frowned.

"Hopefully no one's altered the sensor feeds and our recon is accurate," Miranda added.

"If we're going to split up and coordinate our assault, we'll have to contact each other over the comm. anyway," Shepard shrugged. "We can make a final assessment then."

"Agreed," I said. "We'll stick with the plan for now. Let's move out."

There really wasn't anything else to say. Miranda and Zaeed weren't wrong, of course. They had valid concerns. But we could only go on the data we had. If something else came up to change that, well, we'd just have to adapt. And we had the best person on hand when it came to adapting, improvising and just making some damn thing up on the fly.

Almost made you feel sorry for Liselle and her crew.

Almost.

Okay, not really.

It took us almost five minutes to get into position. I pulled out my sniper rifle and did a quick scan. "Still see four guards," I said aloud.

"Same here," Shepard echoed. "What do you think: top or bottom?"

By which, he meant whether we should take out the guards on the upper floor first or the bottom floor first—because only taking out one guard on each floor and then trying to kill the other guard who would now be alert, ducking for cover and raising the alarm was just plain stupid. To be honest, it didn't really matter: the lines of sight to both floors were equally good and I couldn't see anything that would cause us to prioritize one pair over the other. "Top," I arbitrarily decided.

"Works for me," Shepard shrugged.

I opened a comm channel to Miranda and Zaeed. "Shepard and I are in position," I reported. "What's your status?"

...

Shepard and I exchanged glances. "I repeat: what's your status?"

...

"If you can't talk, flick your status lights off and on," Shepard suddenly said. "Once if you're in trouble; twice if everything's all right."

...

On our HUD, the status lights corresponding to Miranda and Zaeed blinked off, then came back on.

...

They went off and came back on again. Shepard and I breathed twin sighs of relief.

Then we flinched in unison as we heard a muffled explosion, followed by a very loud, but very short, barrage of gunfire.

_"We encountered a slight delay," _Miranda told us over the comm. _"There was an extra pair of guards that were unaccounted for. You didn't detect them because they happened to be stationed outside your sensor grid. We've dealt with them now and are proceeding to our designated point. ETA: fifty-eight seconds."_

How precise. I'd expect nothing less from Miranda.

_"Did you have any similar encounters?"_

"Negative," I replied. "No unexpected hostiles en route to our position and we still only see four guards watching the bridge. Let us know when you've arrived."

_"Understood."_

"I'll take the left guard," Shepard said. "You take the right."

"Do the same for the bottom pair?" I suggested, for simplicity's sake.

"Sure," Shepard nodded.

"_In position," _Miranda reported. I checked my chronometer. Fifty-eight seconds. Exactly.

"On my mark," I instructed. "Three..."

Shepard raised his sniper rifle and centred on his target. I did the same.

"Two..." My sniper rifle wobbled as I spoke. Suppressing a grimace, I adjusted my aim.

"One..." I whispered. Better. My aim didn't drift as much, so I compensated almost immediately. Showtime.

The guards on the top floor collapsed like puppets that'd had their strings cut. I allowed my sniper rifle to drop down and lined up a shot on the bottom right guard. "Got your target, Shepard?"

"Yep."

"All right then. Three... two... one..."

We scoped and dropped them in perfect harmony. Not that we'd be winning any medals for synchronized sniping any time soon. The galaxy is such an unjust place, after all. I switched back to my assault rifle, as it would be more useful in any close-quarters combat, and hurried across the bridge. As Shepard followed, I noticed he was sticking with his sniper rifle for now. Personal choice, I suppose. Besides, his cloaking ability would buy him time to line up a shot.

"Status update?" I whispered.

"_Hostiles neutralized," _Miranda replied. _"We'll enter the base in ten seconds."_

"We've just arrived," I said. "Shepard and I will start sweeping the ground floor while we're waiting."

Shepard and I silently decided that he'd go left and I'd go right. It's nice to have a partner who knows what you're thinking. _"Clear," _he reported.

"Clear—hi, guys!" To Shepard, I added "Miranda and Zaeed are here."

"_I'll meet you guys at the stairs."_

As it turned out, Shepard beat us there. "Checked my HUD," he said when we joined him. "Still four contacts."

"Liselle, her goons and Wexler," Zaeed said.

"Exactly. Now all we have to—whoa. Hang on."

Aw, crap.

Miranda, Zaeed and I immediately checked our HUDs. "We now have five contacts," Miranda frowned.

She was right. The four of us showed up in the centre of my HUD. Over on the left, there were five contacts.

One of them started blinking before disappearing, leaving four contacts.

Another disappeared, bringing the total down to three. Gunfire broke out above us. This had just gone unexpectedly and horribly awry.

"Let's move, people," Shepard barked.

There were only two contacts left by the time we reached the second floor. "Miranda, open the door," Shepard snapped. "Garrus, launch an EMP as soon as you acquire a target. Zaeed, no grenades. Everyone: watch your back."

Charging into a room completely blind was always the worst case scenario, but it wasn't like we had another option. Things had escalated so quickly that there was no more time for diplomacy.

"Hang on," I said. "One of the contacts is approaching the door."

Shepard and Miranda raised their weapons to firing position, aiming directly at the door. Zaeed and I slipped to the side, guns ready. A few seconds passed with agonizing slowness.

The door opened...

To my surprise, I recognized the man who stepped out. It was Neal Cooper. The guy who'd sent me off on this merry chase. I was about to open my mouth when I saw the look of shock on both Shepard's and Miranda's faces. They recognized him too. And not from any description or image file from me, since I hadn't given them anything like this.

Shepard found his voice first. "Bryce?"


	5. Chapter 5: Old Friends

_Author's Note: And here we are. Last chapter. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time and effort to write a review. You have no idea how gratifying and rewarding it was to read them._

_Now, I'm guessing some of you might be interested to see my take on Mass Effect 3. Well, take heart: after this chapter, I'm devoting what little writing time I have to The Hero Rises—the novelization of ME3 in the Heroverse—with the aim to start posting chapters next year. Please keep in mind that, while I'll try to stick to a regular schedule, real life has a nasty habit of interrupting the ol' muse. _

_As an added incentive, I propose the following: for every 200 reviews The Hero Rises gets, I'll write and post a bonus one-shot. Consider it my way of saying thank you for patiently waiting, reading and commenting on my fanfics over the last few years._

_See you in 2015!_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 5: Old Friends<strong>

Well, this was unexpected.

We had finally tracked down Liselle and Wexler down, only to have a third party—fourth? Fifth? Sixth?—intervene. Violently. There were only two contacts left by the time we arrived. One of them was Wexler's supposed cousin: Neal Cooper. The man who'd sent me—and, by extension, the rest of the team—on this merry chase.

Only Shepard seemed to recognize him—Miranda too, but one thing at a time—as someone else. "I'm guessing Neal Cooper isn't your real name," I stated.

Cooper—or 'Bryce,' I suppose I should call him—gave me a small grin, his white teeth flashing. "Is it really a guess? You must have had your suspicions."

"More than a few," I admitted.

"Bryce?" Shepard repeated. I was relieved to see he had recovered somewhat from his shock. "Is that you?"

"A better question would be 'Is that you, Chuck'?" he replied.

Chuck… I thought his name was… come to think of it, I think I did glimpse Shepard's service record. As far as I could recall, his first name was Charles. Was Chuck some kind of nickname for Charles? I wasn't sure, to be honest. Human nomenclature wasn't exactly my strong suit.

Before Shepard could reply, Bryce spoke again. "tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?"

We stared at him blankly. Was this some strange human dialect I'd never heard of? I glanced at Miranda. She caught my eye and shrugged. Apparently she was also at a loss.

"tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?" Bryce repeated. His hand drifted towards his hip, where a pistol was holstered. We immediately raised our weapons before he got any funny ideas. He raised his hands slightly, palms outwards, in a gesture of surrender.

"HIja'," Shepard finally said.

Bryce seemed to relax ever so slightly. "Your pronunciation is horrible, Chuck."

"Hey, whaddya want?" Shepard protested. "I haven't spoken Klingon in _years_!"

Klingon? I looked at Miranda, who shrugged helplessly again. Must be some top-secret human code that even Cerberus hadn't managed to uncover.

"Guys, this is Bryce Larkin." Shepard apparently felt the need to make introductions. "Bryce, this is Garrus, Zaeed and—"

"Miranda," Larkin interrupted. "It's been a while. How are you?"

The way he spoke suggested some past history, which would support her earlier recognition of him. Shepard picked up on that too, judging by the way his eyes narrowed. "Well, thank you," Miranda said politely.

"You know, I still remember all the times we crossed paths," he smiled. "Lisbon… Cabo… Nos Astra…"

Shepard's face darkened with every city Larkin casually dropped.

Miranda's smile was a little more mocking. "I remember how your attempts to seduce me three years, five months and… two days ago ended up with you handcuffed to the bed—minus your clothes—and me waltzing out the room with your omni-tool and credits."

Larkin scowled. Shepard smirked.

Now that Larkin had lost his momentum, Shepard evidently decided to do what he did best: ask questions. "So… how's it been? I kinda lost track of you after Basic. Hell, _everyone _lost track of you after Basic."

"Yeah, that was kinda intentional," Larkin admitted.

"What did you do?"

"Oh, you know. This and that."

"Win any N7 Code of Honour: Medal of Duty games?"

"Games? Try tournaments."

"Uh huh." Shepard didn't seem convinced, as proven by his next words. "We gonna keep beating around the bush or are you gonna tell us who's still breathing in the room behind you?"

"Liselle," Larkin admitted. "Keeping her alive seemed like a good idea."

"Yes," Shepard smiled indulgingly. "Because the last thing Alliance Intelligence would want is to make an enemy of Aria T'Loak. Contrary to popular belief, her influence stretches a little farther than Omega."

Larkin grew very still.

Shepard rolled his eyes. "Oh come on. You really think I didn't know? There was no way you could finish Basic only to become an accountant?"

"All right," Larkin gave up. "Yes, the reason I dropped off the radar was that Alliance Intelligence recruited me a few months before I graduated from Basic. They put me through the usual training for all agents, plus an accelerated OCS program."

"So you're, what, an admiral now?"

"I wish," Larkin sighed. "No, I'm just a lieutenant."

"1st Lieutenant, to be exact," Miranda informed us. "A recent promotion, I believe."

Larkin glared at her. I got the impression that they didn't exactly part ways on the best of terms. Either that, or their relationship was a rather prickly and argumentative one. This might bode well for whatever was developing between Shepard and Miranda. Not all relationships were built on lots of arguments and angry sex, after all.

"That's very interesting, and congratulations for the promotion, but I have a question," I said. "Why is an Alliance Intelligence agent operating on Omega? What mission are you running?"

"We had a lot of birds to kill and we found that we could do so with one stone."

I've heard that particular euphemism before. Given my avian origins, it wasn't exactly one of my favourites. "Go on," was all I said.

"First, we wanted to assess the merc situation on Omega given the recent plague that struck nonhumans. Not to mention the short-lived influence of some self-styled vigilante. Archangel, I think he called himself."

To their credit, no one looked at me.

"And?" Shepard prompted.

"Looks like the three major merc groups have been seriously weakened during Archangel's brief tenure. We'd have to wait for further analysis, of course, but I'd say there'll be a lot of jockeying and fighting for power in the near future."

All at the expense of the civilian population here on Omega, who'd get a front-row seat. Somehow, Larkin didn't seem all that concerned.

"Second, there were a few STG operators and huntresses that had been identified as being… problematic to Alliance interests. All the players compete with each other to some degree, but there are certain rules that everyone's supposed to follow. Or, at least, pretend to follow. These guys didn't even bother to make the attempt. Someone had to play referee."

"By starting another 'game' in which the offending players were lured out with the promise of a big, galaxy-wide master list of spies," I said. "Or was that made up?"

"Oh, it was real," Larkin insisted. "But it was only a list of minor assets and agents. We didn't want to compromise the identities of all the MVPs and force them into retirement. If we did that, we'd have to start identifying them all over again."

"What about Wexler?" Shepard asked. "What was his role?"

"He was the bait. Though he didn't know that. All he was told was that Alliance Intelligence had an asset on Omega providing intel on Aria's operations and we were concerned that her cover was blown. We sent him here under the guise of a company headhunter who was looking to hire IT professionals but wasn't too picky about what they might've done in the past."

Shepard frowned. "Somehow, I have the feeling he didn't know how dangerous this job would be. Did you kill him, or was he an accidental casualty of all the ruckus we just heard?"

"I did," Larkin admitted, without a hint of shame or regret. "He'd been slated to be cancelled. To be honest, he would've been cancelled a long time ago if a suitable replacement had been found. Which brings me to the fourth reason."

While I hadn't heard that euphemism before, it was safe to assume it referred to a sanctioned assassination or murder. The casual way Larkin used that phrase sent shivers down my spine. Yes, I could believe Larkin was an intelligence agent. He seemed quite comfortable with sacrificing people once they'd outlived their usefulness.

Don't get me wrong: people like Shepard or I are prepared for the possibility of taking a life and dealing with the consequences. But we do so in the line of duty. To protect innocent civilians who need help or because we're under fire and are fighting back in self-defence. If we have to go in guns blazing, we do so with a clear conscience because we assessed the situation and knew that there was no time for negotiation—or because any attempt at contact would sacrifice the element of surprise and increase the risk to the squad.

That was why we had to kill, when necessary. But actively, consciously, _deliberately _setting out with the intent to sacrifice a living individual like some piece on a game board? That's something else. That's just cold.

Or is it? Because that's exactly what I wanted to do to Sidonis. For all the lives he took. Good men and women that he fought beside. That I fought beside. That I was responsible for. He took that away. He robbed Omega of a chance to rise above the crime and misery that had plagued its helpless civilians for centuries. He deserved to die. So maybe this Wexler deserved to die too.

But if that was the case… what did that say about me? Was my situation different because I was searching for justice? Or was I just as ruthless as Larkin appeared to be.

It was easier for me to focus on the situation at hand. Larkin had mentioned a fourth reason for his actions. "And what exactly is that?" I managed.

"We'd gathered numerous reports about your return, including the one from Staff Commander Alenko regarding your encounter on Virmire."

Shepard made a fist. I don't think he was even aware of it. That conversation hadn't exactly gone well. I knew he had felt like he'd failed to some extent for not saving all the colonists on Horizon. Kaidan's accusations had made it even worse. "Your point?" he bit out.

"Alliance Intelligence wanted confirmation that you were really Shepard and not some Cerberus impostor."

"Really?" Shepard asked sceptically. "Because everyone seemed pretty sure I was who I said I was. They just didn't believe me when I said I'd spent the last two years being really, really dead."

"Yeah, I know. They thought you'd turned traitor. I knew you didn't, though. I'd been saying that ever since you popped back up on the radar. I mean, I've been keeping tabs on you since…"

He broke off, having apparently said a little more than he was supposed to. But it was way too late for that. "Since…" Shepard frowned.

"Since Elysium," Larkin finished.

"Elysium," Shepard repeated blankly. "What're you talking about?"

Larkin took a deep breath. "It wasn't exactly a coincidence that you were assigned to the Elysium garrison."

"What are you talking about?"

"I sent you there. After a bit of hacking."

"You."

"Well, I may have had a little help."

"Why did you send me to Elysium?" Shepard asked blankly.

"Because I'd read some intelligence reports regarding the movement of pirates and slavers. They projected a moderate-to-high probability that Elysium would be hit."

"Wait a minute," Shepard said slowly. "You _knew _of an imminent attack on Elysium? And you did nothing?"

"There was no definitive proof," Larkin said. "Besides, I did do something: I sent you there."

"Why me?" Shepard wanted to know.

"I was hoping the pirates would hit Elysium and you'd save the day. Preferably in a way that was as high-profile as possible."

"You… but that means… you caused all of it?" Shepard sputtered, his voice slowly rising. "You're responsible? Do you know how much grief I had to suffer from Elysium? All the REMFs calling me in for review after review, questioning and second-guessing every move I made? All the crazy assignments and missions I was volunteered for because suddenly the brass thought I loved that kind of thing? All the stupid parades and dinners where politicians and bimbos wanted to shake my hand and get a picture with me that would hit the extranet news? That goddamn statue they built?"

"Really?" Larkin asked. "The other stuff, okay, I get. But the statue?"

"Every time I see that statue, I swear its eyes are following me. It's… _creepy_."

"Fine. Okay."

"You deliberately turned me into some kind of high-profile savior," Shepard said with gritted teeth. "Do you know what it's like being in the spotlight like that? Every second of every day nonstop? With everyone expecting you to be constantly on standby for yet another insane mission that only you can handle? It's _hell_. And you put me there? If I had known… I'd… why? Why did you do that to me?"

"Because you'd impressed a lot of people before Elysium. Before you aced the N7 Program or OCS. Hell, even during Basic."

"Story of my life," Shepard muttered.

"Well, the story you _didn't _hear was the one where you were on the Alliance Intelligence recruitment track."

"I what now?"

This was new. Even Miranda hadn't heard that bit, judging by the look of shock and chagrin—undoubtedly because Cerberus had dropped the ball where that piece of data was concerned—on her face.

"Yeah. I heard that some overeager recruiting officer named Namir had read your profile and got so excited that he fast-tracked your name through processing. Wanted you to go to Omaha for further interviews."

"But…"

"They'd turn you into a… I couldn't… I didn't want you to go through it."

"I don't get it. You deliberately meddled with my career… my life… because some Intelligence officer saw my name?"

"Because you're a good person, Chuck," Larkin said determinedly. As he talked, he grew more anxious, more passionate and fervent. "You always were. Your nature, your heart, your… if you went into intelligence, if you became an operative… you wouldn't survive. I mean, sure, you'd be alive. But the things you'd be forced to do? The person you once were would be destroyed, Chuck. You'd lose your _soul_. I couldn't let that happen."

"So… you turned me into a hero… to save me?"

Larkin snorted. "'Turned'? You were already a hero, Chuck. You just didn't know it. Or you refused to see it."

On that, we could agree. Shepard was a good person. He always went the extra mile—or kilometre or whatever measure of distance you chose to use—to help people, even random strangers that he'd only met a couple minutes ago. He always did what was right. He always did his best to serve the greater good. Not for the first time, I thought about how he'd make a good turian.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Shepard asked. "Warn me or something?"

"Wait," I intervened. "Larkin said he'd read some intelligence reports. Which means he was already with Alliance Intelligence."

"Right. Because Bryce always follows the rules."

Shepard said that a little half-heartedly. I think he knew as well as I did that if Larkin was in Intelligence, he'd be obligated to keep his mouth shut about anything spy-related like any candidates of interest. Even if one of those candidates was his friend.

"I know how much attention and exposure you got after Elysium," Larkin said. "I know it sucked. But… you have to believe me when I say it was for the best. You have no idea how badly Intelligence wanted to get its claws into you. They really wanted to recruit you because of your achievements and your service record. The only thing that didn't make it a slam-dunk was the fact that you already had a number of friends and family."

"Personal connections that could prove a distraction or liability to an agent in the field," Shepard understood.

"Right. But… that could be… handled."

I wasn't sure if Larkin meant that to mean Intelligence would have to live with it or they'd quietly eliminate anyone Shepard was close to. Judging by the way Shepard's eyes narrowed and his hands clenched into fists, I suspected he feared the latter.

"And it worked. Being such a media sensation raised your profile into the public eye. You became too well known. Sure, Intelligence could still find a way. But it would've been more trouble than it was worth. Especially when there were other candidates.

"Besides, the only other course of action I could think of was to find some way to get you dishonourably discharged. But if I went down that route, I figured you'd spend the rest of your life moping around, gorging yourself on cheese snacks and working a minimum-wage job at some electronics retail shop or sandwich restaurant."

"That was… creative," Miranda murmured.

"And oddly specific," I added.

Larkin ignored our comments and continued. "I never regretted what I did. I was trying to protect you. But… I did regret not being able to tell you. And then you died. I thought I'd put it off too long and you'd never get a chance to learn the truth. So when we heard you were alive…"

"That's why you accepted this mission?" Shepard asked incredulously. "So you could confess? And say what? You're sorry?"

Larkin shook his head. "I don't regret what I did. I'm still doing it now: I'm protecting you."

Shepard crossed his arms. "From who?"

"Like I said, we got all sorts of reports. From Councillor Anderson. From Commander Alenko. We know what you said: that you really did die over Alchera. That you spent the last few years being resurrected by Cerberus, not working with the enemy—sorry, Miranda. That you're only working with them to stop the Collectors, who are supposedly abducting human colonists out in the Terminus Systems."

"It's not 'supposedly'," Shepard corrected him.

"Sorry. You're right," Larkin apologized. "Sorry. The point is: Intelligence wasn't sure. They wanted someone to evaluate you. Thanks to a little program I embedded in some of the Intelligence databases—called it Orion after, you know, the Star Trek babes—I found out about this mission and volunteered. I told them that I knew you before, so I was best qualified to determine if you were still the same man that you were all those years ago."

"And?"

Larkin looked hurt. "Chuck. You're still the same guy. I never had any doubt."

"But if you decided otherwise?" Miranda asked. "What then?"

Shepard answered for Larkin. "The Alliance knows that I'm operating out here with the Council's blessing as a Spectre. Even if that blessing means diddly-squat. If Larkin gave anything that smelled even remotely fishy, they wouldn't bother going through official channels to apprehend me. No, they'd just send someone to quietly 'cancel' me. Off the books."

I wish I could say I was surprised.

"Fine," Shepard sighed. "So: mercs weakened, enemy spies dead, spy on our side who'd turned into a liability dead and you've decided that I haven't gone to the dark side even though they have cookies."

What terrorists and other bad guys have to do with baked goods is beyond me, but if I tried to figure out everything Shepard said, I'd never get anything done. A man does have things to do, you know. Not to mention things to… calibrate… all right, maybe I use that term a little too often.

"And by the way, I forgive you."

"What?" Larkin looked confused.

"I forgive you. For looking out for me and interfering in my life even though it was none of your business and I probably could have handled it because, hey, it's me. And I know you aren't going to say it so I'll say it for you: you're thinking that if you didn't feel the need to save me from Intelligence, I wouldn't have gone to Elysium, which means I wouldn't have gotten in and out of several lifetimes worth of nutty suicidal missions, which meant I wouldn't have become a Spectre and had to run around saving the galaxy's cosmic ass only to be ignored yet again by the Council and gotten myself blown to smithereens. Well, cheer up: with my luck, the universe would've found some other way to make me a Spectre and save the galaxy and suffer the Council's short-sightedness and wind up with a fate akin to the walking dead—minus the shambling and the drooling and the 'brains, _brains_' bit. So it's not your fault."

That was when I saw it. It didn't last for long. It disappeared in the blink of an eye. But for a nanosecond, Larkin's façade of the confident, smooth, suave superspy collapsed, revealing a guilt-ridden man who'd been carrying around the burden of a secret for far too long.

Somehow, Shepard had seen that and figured out what Larkin need to hear.

I really shouldn't be surprised.

* * *

><p>Things wrapped up shortly afterward. There was a bit of small talk. Zaeed slipped into the room to see if Liselle was alive—she was—whether she was awake and heard us—she didn't—whether the other guys really were dead—they were—and what kind of loot they had—very little. Larkin promised to respect the fact that Shepard was a big boy now and could take care of his own messes, which meant the next time something came up, Larkin would send a few warnings instead of enact a complicated scheme to fix things and irrevocably change the course of Shepard's life again.<p>

Afterwards, Larkin left, we split up. Zaeed took Liselle back to Aria, with the hopes of earning a few credits for 'rescuing her out of the goodness of his heart'. Miranda went with him to make sure he didn't get lost along the way. Shepard stayed behind because he had this sudden bizarre idea that I had a huge cache of credits lying around—a 'dragon's hoard that would make Smaug green with envy' was how he put it. And I stayed behind in the vain hope that I could convince him that he'd already cleaned out the base the first time he came here.

It took about five minutes before he spoke. "I actually knew more than I let on," Shepard confided. "With what Larkin told us, I mean. I just didn't want to say it out loud with everyone else around."

"So this isn't about the credits."

"Oh I'm sure you have a stash squirreled away."

"But I don't have a stash and what do squirrels have to—never mind. Go on."

"Bryce really was protecting me."

I motioned for Shepard to sit down on one of the sofas. He looked around before giving up on finding one that wasn't riddled with bullet holes. "How do you know?"

"Wexler. Namir. Omaha. Alliance Intelligence."

"All right," I said slowly. "How do they all connect?"

"In any other context, Omaha's just a city in the state of Nebraska. It's part of the United North American States on Earth. But I think Larkin was talking about Fire-team Omaha. And if he is… Omaha doesn't exist. Not officially."

"Naturally," I sighed. "Let me guess: unofficially, it's some group that works for Alliance Intelligence."

"Worse. Unofficially, it's one of the deadliest and most effective covert operations units around. Technically, they're on loan from Alliance Special Forces to Alliance Intelligence, but they haven't gone back in a long time. Omaha reports directly to Eli David, Deputy Director of Alliance Intelligence. Also known as 'Triple-D.' Really scary guy. Handles all the darkest and dirtiest jobs that no one in the Alliance wants to talk about, everything from military research projects that would be right up Cerberus's alley to assassination and sabotage missions."

"And Omaha handles the latter," I said.

"Exactly," Shepard confirmed. "Now I never actually joined Intelligence—Larkin was right on that point—but I did get involved in a few joint operations. Plus, I kept in touch with a couple sources. Associates, friends, that sort of thing. It's been a few years—'cuz I was dead, obviously—but the last I heard? The only Namir I know of wasn't some 'recruiting officer'. He was Omaha's leader. Ruthless SOB. Carries out his orders without question or hesitation, no matter how many casualties there might be along the way. Hell, he was doing wet work long before Omaha. There was a joke going around that he was Triple-D's personal assassin. Wexler didn't have nearly as bad a rep, but he was also a member of Omaha."

"So if Larkin was telling the truth, they wanted you to be the newest member of Omaha," I said. "And Wexler… Larkin said they would have gotten rid of him if they found a suitable replacement. That was you. Someone wanted you to replace Wexler."

"But Larkin sabotaged that plan. The Skyllian Blitz was back in 2176. That was… over ten years ago." Shepard shook his head. "Wexler must've really been a problem if they decided to reactivate his cancellation order after all this time."

"Were the two of you close?" I asked. "You and Bryce, I mean?"

"I…" Shepard trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. "We met when I was still in Basic. I made a lot of friends there, but he was the first. Not to mention we had a lot in common. Nerdy stuff, mostly. An appreciation for old music and vids. That sort of thing."

Spirits help me. Not another one.

"The only thing that nagged at me was… everything always came easily to him. Classes. Exams. Training. He was an expert marksman. Always got the hottest women—and men. Even had a few… extracurricular sessions with some of the instructors.

"Like I said earlier, I lost track of him after we finished Basic. I certainly had no idea where he was when I went to OCS. Though I always thought that if he had been there, he'd be competing with Captain Awesome—that's a nickname, not a rank or name—on a regular basis."

"I see." I leaned back against the sofa and thought about everything Shepard had just told me. "And now you know that Larkin went into Intelligence, got a firsthand look at what it was like, altered the course of your life to prevent you from suffering the same fate and indirectly contributed to your becoming the first human Spectre and saving the galaxy from the Reapers," I summarized.

"Yeah. I guess." Shepard looked a bit overwhelmed when he said that. Couldn't blame him. It was quite a tale.

"With some help."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember that program he said he used to find out about this latest mission?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think it was a program."

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"Bryce is a pretty good hacker. It's part of the standard curriculum at the Farm. But infiltrating the databases of Alliance Intelligence? He's not _that _good. One of the few things he didn't ace without sleeping with someone." Shepard paused, a thoughtful frown on his face. "Though it has been a while so maybe he finally upped his game."

"Or maybe he copied a program from someone else," I suggested.

"Or maybe Orion gave it to him. Hell, maybe Orion contacted him in the first place."

"Orion's a person?"

"Supposedly. He's kind of an urban legend amongst intelligence circles—and not just in the Alliance. Most don't think he exists. Those who do call him Orion. All that's known for sure is that he's male and he's some kind of computer genius. Apparently, he used to work for the Alliance once upon a time. Government scientist, freelancer, something like that. Details are sketchy at best. According to what I heard, he parted ways with the Alliance for some reason and disappeared. Vanished from the face of the galaxy. That was… about twenty years ago now."

"And now Orion might be back and trying to help you," I mused. "Indirectly."

"Could be," Shepard shrugged.

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"Maybe he's bored. Maybe he's a fan." Shepard chuckled tiredly. "Hell, maybe he heard my story and actually believes me. That would be a first."

"You're wrong there," I disagreed. "I believe you. Why else do you think I'm here?"

"Because I saved your ass?"

"Please. I was just getting warmed up when you butted in and stole some of my kills."

"Uh huh."

"It's true."

"Keep telling yourself that, hotshot."

The laughter filled the air for a minute or so before dying down into a comfortable silence." "So why tell me?" I asked. "About Larkin and Omaha and Orion and all of it."

Shepard looked me in the eye. "Because you believe me. And because I trust you. And, hell, maybe I'm just trying to say thank you for sticking with me after all these years and watching my back."

"Well, I had some time on my hands," I shrugged. "No big deal." I coughed and changed the subject before things got really awkward. "So now what? Are you ready to head over to the Citadel now?"

"You really want to go down that rabbit hole?"

"I… have no idea what that means. But I want to find Sidonis. I _need _to find him and make him pay."

Shepard sighed. "All right."

We started heading out of my old base, leaving the ghosts, disturbing questions and even more disturbing answers behind. For now. "Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You hungry? There's a kiosk near here that specializes in varren hot dogs. They've got some decent dextro-grub too."

"Varren hot dogs. This I gotta see."

…

…

"Shepard?"

"Yeah, Garrus?"

"I trust you too."

"I know."

As we walked back through the grimy, blood-stained corridors of Omega, I knew that things would work out. One way or the other. As long as Shepard and I had each other's backs, we'd never be lost in the dark. I'd always have a little light for him, to help him find his way.

And he'd do the same for me.


End file.
